The King Can Do No Wrong: Blame Games and Power-Sharing in Authoritarian Regimes
Under Contract at Cambridge University Press
As the most powerful figures in their political systems, authoritarian rulers should be natural targets for blame when the public becomes dissatisfied with governance outcomes. Nonetheless, some autocrats appear to be more successful than others at deflecting anger away from themselves. What explains why these autocrats are less likely to be targeted by opposition when their regimes perform poorly? I address this question by exploring the politics of blame in authoritarian regimes, evaluating how individuals attribute responsibility under autocracy and how these attributions shape interactions between the autocrat, elites, and the public. I argue that autocrats can reduce their exposure to blame by delegating to other political elites, that this possibility influences when and for which issue domains autocrats are willing to share decision-making powers, and that these blame games influence trajectories of repression, mass mobilization, and accountability in authoritarian regimes.
The book also argues that this strategy of shifting blame by sharing power is particularly effective for ruling monarchs compared to other types of autocrats. This advantage occurs because delegation is less costly for monarchs and aligns more closely with the public’s expectations about who in the political system is meant to be held responsible for unpopular outcomes. However, since not all monarchs have historically chosen to share power widely with other political elites, this argument also helps to explain why some monarchies survived into the modern period while others were overthrown through revolutionary uprisings.
To support these claims, the book combines cross-national research with a detailed case study of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Evidence for the Jordan case study was collected during a year of fieldwork and includes more than 100 elite interviews, text analysis of documents from official Jordanian government websites, survey and experimental data, and archival research in the National Archives of the United Kingdom. The cross-national research relies on statistical analysis of several global datasets of authoritarian regimes, internet search data, an original survey experiment, and a number of shorter case studies.
The project sheds light on how, when, and why autocrats are able to shift responsibility for the poor performance of their regimes. In doing so, it contributes to understanding of when opposition is more likely to escalate in autocracies and why some autocrats are able to retain substantial popular support. The book also provides insights into the political dynamics of monarchy as an understudied but influential type of authoritarian rule.