Anna Grzymala-Busse
174 foreign affairs
so, autocracies run through hegemonic
political parties last twice as long as those
that do not. (It would have been interest-
ing to hear more about how leaders
create and manage parties—for example,
how they carry out purges without
overreaching and provoking a backlash.)
How Dictatorships Work also makes clear
why fraudulent elections and weak legisla-
tures are useful to autocrats: less because
they provide a veneer of legitimacy thanout a coup: in 1969, for instance, Muam-
mar al-Qaddafi took over the Libyan state
with help from a small number of allies
and 48 rounds of ammunition.
Once in power, a dictator and his inner
circle must balance cooperation and
conflict. Autocrats must collaborate with
subordinates to create a political base on
which to rest their rule, but they also want
to keep their crews loyal.
The dictator’s dilemma consists of
giving his immediate supporters enough
benefits to secure their loyalty but not so
many that any one supporter can become
a viable challenger. And the dictator has to
deliver a continuous stream of benefits—
promises alone cannot suffice, because the
autocrat’s promises are not credible. After
all, there are no institutions to enforce
them, such as independent courts or
parliaments. So rulers often survive by
delegating authority and patronage or
by redistributing land and other resources.
One key lesson that emerges from
How Dictatorships Work is that an aspiring
autocrat would do well to establish a
hegemonic political party. (Consider
the late Cuban prime minister Fidel
Castro’s Communist Party, which was
founded in 1965 and has endured to the
present day.) Parties mobilize society
and provide citizens with benefits,
creating the kind of dependence that
encourages popular support—and,
perhaps as important, complicity. Once
schooling, jobs, and travel depend on
one’s party affiliation, most members of
society remain loyal or at least quiescent.
This partisan patronage does have the
unintended result of filling the party’s
ranks with opportunists who are far more
interested in tangible benefits than in the
regime’s putative ideology. But Geddes,
Wright, and Frantz point out that even