Research Insight: Military and Clerics in Muslim Autocracies
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This research elucidates the willingness of an autocrat to push through institutional reforms in a context where traditional authorities represented by religious clerics are averse to them and where the military control the means of repression and can potentially make a coup. We show that although the autocrat always wants to co-opt the military, this is not necessarily true of the clerics. Empirically, the dominant regime in contemporary Muslim countries is the regime of double co-option: the autocrat resorts to a double-edged tactic that consists of pleasing the official clerics by slowing the pace of reforms and ensuring the loyalty of the military to be able to put down an opposition instigated by dissident clerics. Exclusive co- option of the military obtains only where the autocrat’s intrinsic legitimacy and the loyalty of his army are relatively strong while the organizational strength of religious movements is rather low. Radical institutional reforms can then be implemented. Rent economies where ultra-conservative clerics are powerful enough to block any institutional reform that they dislike represent another polar case.
Researchers:
Emmanuelle Auriol, Toulouse School of Economics, Jean-Philippe Platteau, University of Namur, Thierry Verdier, Paris School of Economics
