Elite Recruitment in Autocracies

• In Event: Autocratic and Traditional Leaders

Abstract

How do autocrats select appointees for a regime's most sensitive positions? This paper presents a theory of coalition appointment in divided societies. Autocrats confront a tradeoff between loyalty and representation. Autocrats prefer to recruit from within their in-groups, whose members are most loyal. But they also have an interest in recruiting from across the society's cleavages, which discourages out-group protests and rebellions. By privileging loyalty over representation, autocrats truncate the selection market in favor of their in-group. This has two effects. First, it fosters a ``politics of hope" among the in-group. The prospect of some future appointment encourages in-group members to support the regime even if they do not benefit from it directly. Second, it fosters a ``politics of fear." The more truncated the selection market in favor of the in-group, the more in-group members stand to lose from an alternative regime, which reinforces their support. The power of these beliefs -- hope and fear -- among the in-group declines with how representative the regime is. Autocrats privilege loyalty over representation, I argue, when they are insulated from out-group collective action, vulnerable to coups for structural reasons, and for crucial portfolios.

This paper draws on three data sources. First, I reconstructed the government of the Republic of Congo: by following Congo's 1,500 leading elites each year since President Denis Sassou Nguesso reclaimed power in 1997. The dataset includes appointees to the security apparatus, ministerial corps, presidential counselors, constitutional institutions, regional and local government, bureaucracy, and parastatals. It charts their careers, demographic backgrounds, and anti-regime activities. The dataset also tracks Sassou Nguesso's seizure group. Second, I use a nationally representative survey to measure the wage premium for public sector employment and the extent to which Sassou Nguesso's in-group enjoys preferential status. Third, I draw cross-country evidence from the Ethnic Power Relations Dataset, which documents how ethnic representation in Africa's autocracies changed after the Cold War. The evidence is consistent with the theory. As out-group collective action grew less threatening, Sassou Nguesso truncated the selection market. At the elite level, between 1997 and 2012, his preference for in-group appointees to the regime's most sensitive positions increased by roughly 30\%. For public sector employment -- a ticket, I show, to the middle class -- his co-ethnics now enjoy an advantage equivalent to a college degree. This truncation, as expected, induces in-group elites and ordinary citizens to behave as if they benefit from the regime even when they do not.

This paper, to the best of my knowledge, offers the most complete theoretical account of the politics of appointment in autocracies. In so doing, it answers a longstanding question: Does an ethnically homogenous regime reflect autocratic strength or weakness? The answer is either; knowing which requires knowledge of regime dynamics.

Author

• Brett Logan Carter, University of Southern California