Public administration in authoritarian regimes

There has been an “institutional turn” in the study of authoritarian regimes (Pepinsky, 2014). That interest in institutions has not extended to public bureaucracies to the extent that seems necessary if we are to understand how these political systems govern. Bureaucracies tend to be the most standardised institutions within political systems. One can travel to all parts of the world and find pyramidal structures within departments, a formal personnel system based (at least in theory) on merit, probably some more or less autonomous agencies, and other standard features. That similarity is often only superficial, and there are fundamental differences among bureaucracies, even with the apparent similarities. Comparing public bureaucracies, therefore, involves getting beneath apparent similarities, and understanding how and why systems differ. One of the crucial factors producing differences among administrative systems is whether they function within a democratic or an authoritarian regime. The diffusion of ideas about public management, and pressures from donor organisations have in many cases produced what Fred Riggs (1964) called “doublespeak” in administration.The public image and pronouncements of the bureaucracy are one thing, and sound like those from a modernised, democratic regime. The reality within the system, and especially the reality of relationships between the state and its citizens may, however, be something else entirely. Simply saying that the bureaucracy is functioning within an authoritarian regime is in itself inadequate to explain differences among administrative systems. For example, there may be marked differences between authoritarian regimes controlled by political parties and those that are more personal (van Soest & Grauvogel, 2017), and both of those will differ from those controlled by the military. In addition, some authoritarian regimes are also developmental, and use the power of the state to direct resources towards economic development (Chibber, 2002), while others may be more oriented merely towards controlling their societies. Also, the ideologies motivating authoritarian regimes may differ, with some being socialist or communist, while others being extremely conservative (including theocracies), and some having little ideology at all except for the maintenance of power. Finally, some authoritarian regimes depend more on validation through elections than do others. These electoral authoritarian regimes (see Schedler, 2013), or competitive authoritarian regimes (Levitsky & Way, 2010), justify themselves through having a mandate from the people, rather than strictly by power or ideology. The hybrid nature