Blame Shifting under Military Rule

• In Event: Poster Session: Democracy and Autocracy

Abstract

How do the citizens of military autocracies feel about their militaries? This question is important for understanding how militaries regimes survive and function. However, theoretical accounts tend to predominantly study authoritarian militaries as a purely coercive apparatus. I leverage an original dataset on autocratic spells by type of military influence and find that regimes with militaries that influence politics indirectly significantly outlast those where militaries influence politics directly. To explain this difference in durability, I argue that, in cases where civilian institutions have a degree of authority in quotidian matters, militaries that influence politics indirectly can avoid damages to their legitimacy and bypass threats to accountability by shifting blame to civilian authorities, thereby strategically downplaying responsibility for unfavorable outcomes such as economic and security crises. I test this by drawing on survey data and I find evidence that such strategies are effective in swaying the views of citizens in autocracies where military influence is indirect, but that they fail to elicit the intended effects when military influence is direct. In unpacking the attitudinal effects of different forms of military influence, the findings have important implications about the dynamics of accountability in military autocracies. The findings imply a dilemma for juntas in military-led autocracies between ruling indirectly but risking potential challenges to their interests from civilian authorities or ruling directly but relinquishing their capacity of hiding from public criticism.

Author

• Hood Ahmed, University of Michigan