Boundary Control
SUBNATIONAL AUTHORITARIANISM IN FEDERAL DEMOCRACIES
Authoritarianism is a form of government characterized by strong central power and limited political freedoms. It is marked by a systematic violation of either the right of political contestation or political participation (Gibson, 2012). In an authoritarian regime, the exercise of political rights by the population is minimal.
There is often an existence of subnational authoritarianism in the democratic nation. As documented by Edward L Gibson in his book Boundary Control, Subnational Authoritarianism in Federal Democracies, Institutional forms of local authoritarianism can be found in the subnational and national political system. The strategic interaction between local and national politics maintains the sub-national authoritarianism in a nationally democratic country. The social-economic and cultural factors inherent in the jurisdiction may contribute to the local authoritarian situation, but sub-national authoritarian enclaves must be nurtured and sustained by politics in the face of a democratic central government. (Gibson, 2012). To continue sub-national authoritarianism, the local incumbent establishes multiple administrative and political power strategies and cooperation and coalition-building between local and democratic national leaders.
The endurance of sub-national authoritarianism depends on the systemic infringement by local incumbents of democratic rights by legal and illegal abuse of representative institutions. Local incumbents exploit or use the subversion of democratic institutions rather than eliminating them during the practice of authoritarianism. A prime example of how the competitive process is systematically rigged for incumbents is the tactics employed by the leaders of "Solid South" The case of' Solid South' will be discussed later in this article.
Regimes across the territory
The constitution of any nation addresses a wide range of concerns. There are, however, two distinct regimes at the foundation of the constitution: the political regime and the territorial regime. As Gibson explained, the political regime is a collection of political structures that regulate the relationship between people and the state, along with the election and conduct of public authorities. Besides, the political regime also seeks to control individual rights and behavior. It is possible to split the political regime into two types: democracy and authoritarianism.
The territorial regime controls the relations between territorial units such as states, districts, municipalities, etc., and specifies the separation of powers between the subnational territorial units and national governments. The territorial regime tends to govern territorially organized populations. The territorial regime can be divided into federalism and unitarianism.
Boundary Control in subnational authoritarianism
Conflict is inevitable in the political system due to the power asymmetry and tendency to control territorial politics. E.E. Schattschneider explains the concept of boundary control in subnational authoritarianism in the book The Semi-Sovereign People. He argues, in the political conflict between two unequally matched parties, the stronger party wants to keep the conflict as private and segregated as possible. It allows a stronger party to retain the unfair power match between the two, allowing the influential party to prevail in the dispute. The weaker side, by contrast, wishes to increase the number of conflict participants. The inclusion of new actors in the conflict expands the conflict's spectrum for the adversary and shifts the balance of power between the original two parties.
Via many boundary protection tactics, the incumbents aim to deprive the opposition of access to national allies and resources in the authoritarian regime. On the other hand, the opposition appears to breach the provincial boundaries with third parties, predominantly national actors. Nationalizing or having a third party in the dispute, creates coalition opportunities for the opposition. This will raise the likelihood that the provincial authoritarian leadership will be reversed. The incumbents, therefore, tend to close the boundary, while the opposition tends to open the border (Schattschneider, 1975).
The structural convergence of national and sub-national political arenas creates a permanent obstacle for local incumbents and ongoing opportunities for local opposition, as Gibson clarifies in his book. The diffusion or non-diffusion of democracy across territorial jurisdiction is closely related to incumbents and opponents' efficacy of local dispute management.
Faustian Bargain and the juxtaposition of national democracy and subnational authoritarianism
Regime juxtaposition is a widespread phenomenon in most of the federal democracies. In regime juxtaposition, there are two government levels- central government, which is mostly democratic in nature, and the state or provincial government, which may pose authoritarian nature. Both regimes have their jurisdiction over the same territory. In his book, Gibson explains that the set of norms, rules, and practices in regime juxtaposition governs the selection and behavior of state leaders.
In its general term, Faustian Bargain is an agreement in which a person abandons his or her spiritual values or moral principles to obtain something great like wisdom, wealth, or other benefits. The Faustian Bargain is often used as a metaphor to portray the agreements between the political players. Scholars have used Faustian Bargain's rationale to refer to a deal in which one focuses on the immediate benefit without contemplating the long-term implications. How does Faustian Bargain's concept help justify and clarify the juxtaposition in federal democracies between national democracy and sub-national authoritarianism?
Let us start with the purpose of democracy. In a democratic regime, a nation ensures liberty, equality, justice, and social welfare among all citizens. The promotion of these values requires the maintenance of social peace and stability (Mozaffar, 2017), and subnational governments in federal democracies exercise political authority. When political power is used by the institutionally and constitutionally sanctioned capability of a small group of actors to make decisions, others' interest and welfare are critically affected. The liberties enjoyed by individuals are often restricted for the protection of freedom shared in common.
The United States in the late 19th century, Argentina, and Mexico in the late 20th century possessed a national democratic government for some time. However, as time passed, the sub-national authoritarian idea comes into existence, and democratic ideals faded away. In many provinces, incumbents resisted national democratic trends and strengthened subnational authoritarian governments (Gibson, 2012).
The authoritarian regime is not merely a product of local conditions. Local conditions may increase local resistance to the national democratic pressures and may form a fertile land for the local authoritarian regime. In a broad sense, a subnational authoritarian rule is a national-state coalition deliberately nurtured by national politics. In other words, it is an agreement between subnational authoritarianism and national politics. The interdependence between national democracy and sub-national authoritarianism may exist.
Democratic governance contains the inherent potential for tyranny (Mozaffar, 2017), especially in the federal democracies. To secure justice in their jurisdiction, the subnational government exercises a political authority by imposing penalties, which harbors the potential to do injustice. The exercise of political authority creates and sustains the conditions for promoting democratic values and contains the potential to undermine and even destroy the same values. The subnational regime across the nation may be in the United States, Canada, or Argentina, practiced authoritarian and tyrannical values.
Political strategies for the boundary control
The provincial authoritarian governments in democratic countries are entities that are made and unmade. There could be domestic socioeconomic or cultural characteristics that would favor the local hegemony. The provincial governments are, however, the outcome of local incumbents' strategic and institutional intervention. Subnational authoritarian leaders implement different methods for boundary control. The three border protection strategies are: (a) parochialization of power, (b) nationalization of power, and (c) monopolization of national-subnational linkages (Gibson,2012).
a) Local strategies, local goal: The Parochialization of Power
A regional political control strategy to optimize gubernatorial hegemony over the subnational territory is the parochialization of power. This strategy is being applied in the sub-national fields of political action. This power control system consists of the government of the province, local governments, municipalities, etc.
In a regional political system, the authoritarian rule's degree depends on the national political system's democratization. A provincial military government would be tough to maintain in a nationally democratic country, except in civil unrest situations. However, most influential authoritarian players have institutionally connected the province's authoritarian rule to national politics. It supports local authoritarianism as long as it is consistent with national democracy.
According to V.O. Key, in Southern Politics in State and Nation, a state-level "one-party system" is an effective institutional mechanism for organizing subnational authoritarian rule, as it is exceedingly difficult to maintain an organized opposition. Thus, by retaining sub-national hegemonic parties, national parties also exert political power to dominate local electoral parties. In a non-competitive sense, the hegemonic party seeks to organize control and counter or neutralize competitive threats.
A perfect example of Parochialization of power is the maintenance of state-level authoritarian regimes in the American South in the 19th and 20th centuries. The greatest disenfranchisement in the history of democracy took place in the former Confederation of the Southern States following the failure of the Reconstruction (1866-77), which led to the construction of a "Solid South." The national struggle launched by radical Republicans in the southern states after the civil war enfranchised many former slave blacks and poor whites. During that period, one after another, civil rights were granted through the Civil Right Act of 1866, the fourteenth and fifteenth amendment of the constitution, and other political actions. However, state's rights were heavily curtailed (Key & Heard, 2006).
After the Supreme Court struck down the statues of the Reconstruction period and reaffirmed the federal doctrine of sub-systemic autonomy (rights of states) of the 19th century, the national territorial regime was organized in favor of the agenda of border closers. Local incumbents turned their attention to local and national structural boundary control and ultimately gave structure and stability to the Solid South in American politics. The Redeemers successfully insulated local politics from national competitive trends and constructed Democratic Party hegemony without national legislative action. Legal initiatives gradually replaced illegal and informal political agreements to maintain the Democratic Party's superiority during the redemption period (Gibson, 2012).
The Redeemers were challenged by the "democratic guarantees" produced during the Reconstruction period. Thus, the legal suppression of democracy became a constitutional process in several states starting in 1980. In 1890, Mississippi took the lead by holding a constitutional convention that codified oppressive laws that increased voting cost and accessibility. Most southern states had constitutional conventions between 1890-1908 that replaced the Reconstruction era's constitutions and cherished the legal basis for hegemonic party rule. The Black electoral turnout in the Southern Ex-Confederate States fell from 61 percent in 1880 to 1.8 percent in 1912, one of the most remarkable effects. By the early 1900s, local policies were primarily segregated by institutional border regulation from national competitive pressures. (Gibson, 2012).
b) National Strategies, Local Goals; the Nationalization of Influence
The nationalization of influence is a policy or political stance for controlling national decisions concerning local authority. This strategy is critical for retaining local border control, as national power is central to local politics' effective management. On the national political stage, active sub-national authoritarian leaders are usually participants. For the sole purpose of strengthening their influence at the local level, they could be low-key national players who hold national positions. For example, the former governor, as a Senate member, could influence legislation or fiscal appropriations relating to their provinces. Two doors of opportunity for provincial leaders are opened through involvement in national politics. First, by affecting policymaking, they will retain control over the region. Second, in national politics, they are increasingly arraying themselves. For example, state governors are ideally placed to use local influence as a springboard to federal offices. (Gibson, 2012). Most of the U.S. Presidents were former governors of the States. The subnational hegemonic party is also essential for the nationalization of influence, as stated by Gibson. It maximizes local incumbents' influence in the national Congress as "an arrangement for national affairs," The higher the number of federal lawmakers reacting to the governor, the more the governor has control over national politics. We may also argue that the regional party controlling national politics is more successful in maintaining the authoritarian regime.
The development of the Solid South was tied to active national strategies. At the heart of the territorial architecture of boundary, control was the state-level hegemonic party, which was the critical institutional linkage between national democratic politics and local authoritarian politics (Gibson, 2012). The South had a strong and powerful delegation of lawmakers in the Senate and the House of Representatives in the early 1990s. Hegemonic party control at home ensured that almost all those lawmakers were Democrats and united in upholding authoritarian rule in the states. In the federal system, there was asymmetrical representation, which increased the national strength of the Democrats. In 1906, 22 seats (one-quarter of all the seats) were occupied in the Senate by 11 states of the former Confederacy. When senators from adjacent or 'border' states controlled by Democratic parties were added to the mix, the Senate's veto alliance was itself constituted by Southern Democratic interests. Also, in the House of Representatives, southern Democrats were greatly overrepresented.
c) Straddling the Local and the National: Monopolization of National-Subnational Linkages.
To retain a local authoritarian regime, the ties between the national and sub-national territorial institutions are crucial. These connections may include national-subnational government relations, institutions or individuals monitoring the activities and expenses of the provinces, and institutions coordinating the representation of the provinces' interests before the center. Such linkages could be revenue flows from center to periphery, communication flows, service deliveries between the governments, the relationship between national and local political parties or unions. In territorial politics, whoever controls linkages controls power (Gibson, 2012).
The Union Army and the Freedman's Bureau, an organization, set up by the national government to provide former slaves with material and political support, were the most visible national government agencies in the South after the civil war. After the war, blacks were politically organized, but their actions were repressed across the states, new types of labor servitude were established, and blacks' demands for redress from state authorities did not succeed (Gibson, 2012). Those national organizations have acted as a vital connection between the state and national arenas in this context. Black carried their complaints to the Army and the Freedmen's Bureau daily against local power holders. They also built a secure shell for local black activists' organizational activities. This is a prime example of how the national arena's link may be vital to retaining regional influence over the situation.
Conclusion
Territorial politics is full of conflicts because of power asymmetry between two or more parties with unequal political powers. This conflict insists incumbents and opponents create the condition of boundary open and boundary close. One with more power tends to keep the conflict as local as possible, whereas one with less power tries to open the subnational border to the third parties. Keeping conflict localized helps the incumbents maintain control over the boundary, whereas adding players into the local conflict helps the opposition gain influence over local politics.
The boundary control process is witnessed in most of the democratic and federal countries in the world. Also, maintaining authoritarian governance at the local level has been one of the tools of national and regional influence in the world's politics. Many countries have witnessed authoritarian rule embedded in the federal democracies. Although the authoritarian regime tends to restrict competition and participation in the subnational polity against the values of democracy, strategic interaction between local and national politics has made it possible to maintain the subnational authoritarian enclaves.
References
Gibson, E. L. (2012). Boundary Control Subnational Authoritarianism in Federal Democracies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Key, V. O., & Heard, A. (2006). Southern politics in state and nation. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
Schattschneider, E. E. (1975). The semi sovereign people: A realists view of democracy in America. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Mozaffar, Shaheen (2017) Intergovernmental Relations, Bridgewater State University, USA.
