Ruling by Shortcut: Categorization in Authoritarian Co-optation and Repression

• In Event: Remodeling Authoritarianism: Conceptual Approaches with Empirical Foundations

Abstract

Elite co-optation and targeted repression are the two strategies that authoritarian regimes utilize to survive. The availability of information about the elites and the masses determines the success of these two strategies (Kuran 1995, Egorov, Guriev, and Sonin 2009, Blaydes 2018, Dimitrov 2022). In this paper, I argue that authoritarian regimes use another kind of political institution, categorization, as a kind of informational shortcut when there is a lack of technology to generate the information. Categorization can lower the cost of getting information for the regime to target the objects of repression and award loyalty. The categorization of elites and mass people can be divided into “Us, friends, and Enemies.” The regime’s specific context and political goals can change the specific categorization schemes. Categorization is hieratical, imposed by the regime, and difficult to change by the individuals themselves. I illustrate how authoritarian regimes utilize categorization through historical cases from China during the revolutionary and communist eras. The Chinese Communist Party and its regime changed the categories of different kinds of peasants, landlords, and other social groups during the war and revolution to mobilize for its revolution goals, repressing and co-opting based on the categorization. During the first decades of the regime, officials categorized individuals by their potential attitudes to the regime, repressing those deemed potential opponents (both ordinary people and elite individuals). Categorization as a political institution also has implications for states and societies, improving the legibility of populations (Scott 1998) and limiting the potential for solidarity across groups. In this sense, this paper also speaks to the existing literature on solutions to dictators’ information dilemmas (Magaloni 2006, Brownlee 2007, Gandhi 2008, Blaydes 2011, Dimitrov 2015) and how political and social-economic status can affect individuals’ economic and political actions (Pan & Zhang 2021, Truex 2022).

Author

• Yipeng Zhang, Tulane University