The Politics of Authoritarian Rule (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics)

Svolik's "Politics of Authoritarian Rule" (2012) is intended for other political scientists, particularly those preferring quantitative methods and writing to build upon and test a certain form of theoretical frameworks the field continues to demand.Allow me to ask a normative question, perhaps one that would make Svolik cringe given his clear preference for quantitative, empirical methods. Noting the emphasis on advanced mathematics and writing for a guild-like field using members-only jargon and a propensity to fill pages with equations rather than observations leads one to wonder: For whom should this book be intended?Perhaps political scientists prefer to be divorced from politics in a zero sum game of theory or practice. The trend toward quantitative mathematical expressions of abstract types rather than emphasizing history and cases has been increasingly saturating the field of political science especially since the 1970s. This trend has worked hard against the Kantian relationship between theory and practice, resulting in a sort of opaque synthesis that is neither a useful theory nor a prescription for real events.Svolik crafts his equations with a number of caveats and qualifiers to ensure simplicity in equations, greatly reducing their connection to reality and limits their usefulness in the real world. Additionally, he emphasizes certain authoritarian cases over others, e.g. discussing Mexico's PRI and the Soviet Union in nearly every chapter, while devoting a single sentence to Iran's current regime. The latter is a unique political system that could be usefully examined to assist in testing his equations. With such an emphasis on quantitative methods, no such examination is possible since Iran is eliminated as an outlier for his equations, as are others that would be useful to examine for various reasons such as Eswatini, Georgia, or the Philippines.Compare a historical and case study approach to the political/military issue of authoritarian systems such as Kevin Pollack's "Armies of Sand" (2019) which examined military systems in a specific set of authoritarian states. Each of Pollack's cases, equally rigorous though primarily qualitative, brought exceptions to the fore and addressed them directly, often to great effect in reinforcing his claims. From a strictly political perspective, Francis Fukuyama's two volumes "The Origins of Political Order" (2011) and "Political Order and Political Decay" (2014) are far more useful for practitioners despite their combined length of nearly a thousand pages compared to the two hundred pages of Svolik's rigorous yet unfortunately inaccessible work.Svolik presents excellent research, elegant models, and a clear ability to identify key variables at work in authoritarian political systems. However, the utility of his findings is strictly limited to such a thin sliver of qualitative political scientists that the work is effectively useless to those involved in dealing with real authoritarian political systems and the conflicts they often present.

Very informative material in understanding authoritarian regimes and how it functions. The only downside of the book is that not all people can understand the book. I mean ordinary people will not umderstand all of the contents of the book.

i read the authors other books they were better. this was not an easy read.

I'm not happy about all details of authors' methodology, but the book content - is among the best pieces of political studies outcomes, based on more or less universal criterions.

Read it Read it Read it Read it Read it Read it Read it Read it Read it Enough Said. I liked it a lot!

Brilliant theoretic explanation of authoritarian poer-sharing institutions.

Svolik cogently lays out a unified theoretical framework that allows political scientists to first identify key actors and sources of political conflict in dictatorships and then to understand the intricate bases for significant variation in policies, institutions, and regime stability/leadership change across such regimes.What is truly groundbreaking about this work is that it utilizes large-N studies, single case studies, game theory, and qualitative analyses to propose a *unified* theory of dictatorship. Logically coherent and relatively easy to read, this book deserves to become the authoritative source on the study of authoritarian regimes.

The book is a very important and interesting read for any one who is interested in the politics of authoritarian regimes.