Dividing the People: The Authoritarian Bargain, Development, and Authoritarian Citizenship
In: Comparative politics, Band 56, Heft 1, S. 95-119
ISSN: 2151-6227
Autocrats must redistribute to survive, but redistribution is limited and selective. Who is entitled to redistribution underlying the authoritarian bargain? I argue redistribution is a question of citizenship. Autocrats use citizenship institutions, especially particularistic membership, to strategically limit and extend socio-economic rights to ensure both security and economic development. I apply this framework to China, where control over particularistic membership decentralized in conjunction with development strategies. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, government policies, and a database of local citizenship policies in China, I trace how local citizenship creates closure while economic development incentivizes strategic inclusion. By evaluating how authoritarian citizenship functions, this framework increases our understanding of individual-staterelations in autocratic contexts.