responsiveness and accountability of the elites. Less certainty can be attached to the relationship between voter volatility and the predominant variety of non-democratic rule in the contemporary world, electoral authoritarianism. It is conventionally defined as a political regime that, while permitting certain

’s imminent demise are therefore somewhat premature and, perhaps, little more than wishful thinking. Furthermore, I suggest that we may wish to think about the continuing validity of using electoral authoritarianism as a shorthand description of the Russian system: some aspects of the model, notably the

in Andreas Schedler’s key work on electoral authoritarianism, and in the similarly effective treatment by Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way. 5 Drawing on those ideas, what we find in Myanmar is that the armed forces effectively fortified their position in Myanmar society under the 2008 constitution

* The author wishes to thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor for their suggestions, which helped to improve the draft. Managing national political elites is one of the most important tasks faced by any authoritarian regime. After all, in electoral authoritarian systems, the very

the Arab Press, Mideast Mirror , December 12, 2005 (Section B: Th e Arab World)). From Subjects to Citizens? Th e Shifting Paradigm of Electoral Authoritarianism in E g ypt Aslı Ü. Bâli * UCLA School of Law, Los Angeles Abstract A wave of elections and political reforms in the Middle East in 2005

look into the varied practice of electoral manipulation. I argue that based on much of the emerging scholarship on electoral authoritarian regimes and electoral manipulation, we can observe differing aims of manipulation. Two potential aims for electoral manipulation are for instrumental and

’s potential to win vote support. This shift in state strategy gets to the heart of electoral authoritarian dilemmas: if the state offers the opposition too much latitude it risks instability but it restricts political rights altogether, it loses legitimacy. This paper reflects Navalny’s sentiment that

referred to as “electoral authoritarianism” (Schedler 2006 ), “competitive authoritarianism” (Levitsky and Way 2002 ), or “liberalized autocracy” (Brumberg 2002 ). It has been established empirically that this is the most widespread variety of autocratic rule in the contemporary world (Magaloni and

Introduction Electoral authoritarianism, conventionally defined as a distinct political regime that, while remaining dictatorial in the basic patterns of power distribution and reproduction, at the same time permits certain institutions normally associated with democracy, such as partially

competition in Russian politics. Not being able to cancel elections, the ruling elite group sought to take them under control and to make them predictable and non-challenging for the regime. The policies of the regime are fully in accord with the logic of electoral authoritarianism. 3 From the view of the