The Dictator's Dilemma at the Ballot Box By Masaaki Higashijima. 2022. University of Michigan Press. Book Reviews

Abstract

Most of the existing explanations for authoritarian elections suffer from two shortcomings. The first one is the generalization of their findings. Single-country cases inspire many of these theories, and it is hard to know whether their proposed predictions apply to other autocracies. The second problem is prevalent in social sciences: there is no cumulative learning. Many theories of authoritarian elections provide competing explanations to the conventional wisdom without delineating the conditions in which the proposed mechanism should appear over the alternatives. Masaaki Higashijima ’ s recent publication, The Dictator ’ s Dilemma at the Ballot Box , overcomes such limitations in a magistral way. The author proposes a solid argument about the incentives for dictators to hold and manipulate elections and provides a multi-methods approach using cross-national evidence to test his argument. The book centers around the competing incentives for dictators when holding elections. On the one hand, honest election results provide information about the regime ’ s popularity, the discontent areas, and local agents ’ competence. Authoritarian elections also allow the opposition to channel its demands through the institutional arena, mitigating the threats to the dictators. On the other, winning by large margins can transmit an aura of invincibility and strong popular support to the dictator inside and outside the ruling elites. In the best