Maria Debre has published an open access article based on her dissertation research in Democratization.
In the article entitled “The Dark Side of Regionalism: how regional organizations help authoritarian regimes to boost survival” she argues that membership in regional international organisations can be instrumentalised by authoritarian regimes to offset crisis and increase chances of incumbent survival.
The article explains how membership provides additional material, informational, and ideational resources to autocratic incumbents that can be used to boost domestic survival strategies vis-à-vis internal and external challengers. It provides qualitative case-based evidence to show how autocratic incumbents in Zimbabwe, China, and Bahrain have benefited from the involvement of regional organisations during moments of political instability to strengthen legitimation, repression, co-optation, and international appeasement strategies.
