This study offers a novel investigation of why incumbents from the proestablishment coalition in an authoritarian regime do not have an electoral edge over challengers. Although proestablishment incumbents in nondemocratic regimes, as in democracies, enjoy advantages in the form of distribution of patronage, pork barrel, and privileged access to media, in a competitive election in such regimes there is no guarantee of their reelection. While one might expect the incumbent reelection rate in a nondemocratic regime such as Iran to be high, based on the results of Iranian parliamentary elections, the incumbent reelection rate is relatively low (33%). By focusing on Iranian parliamentary elections since 1980 and by using original data gathered at the district level, I have found that incumbents from the nonestablishment coalition have an electoral edge over proestablishment candidates. In spite of manipulative strategies by the ruling incumbents (e.g., banning candidates, intimidating voters, and forging ballots), the likelihood of independent and reformist incumbents winning has risen. The results of last three consecutive parliamentary elections in Iran (2004, 2008, 2012) illustrate that the nonestablishment incumbents have had more capacity to respond to voters’ demands. Furthermore, I have found that electoral institutions have an effect on the level of incumbency advantage in these elections. By placing Iranian’s mixed electoral systems in a comparative context and exploring the effect of electoral institutions on voting behavior, I have found that the incumbency advantage is greater in single-member districts than in multimember districts. Studying elections in authoritarian regimes can help to explain why, despite strong social demands in many polities for democratization, serious challenges to democratic transition remain. This study expands on the research on the electoral behavior of citizens and institutions in nondemocratic states.

Analysts have shown that dictatorships with elected legislatures last longer than those without elections, but there is disagreement about how elections might contribute to authoritarian durability. In this paper, I explore how leaders in autocracies utilize electoral institutions to maintain splintered political support and neutralize threats to their power through strategic redistribution of state resources. Much scholarly work describes how the distribution of patronage is an essential component to keeping power in many competitive authoritarian regimes. However, rarely does this employ empirical data from primary resources to back up this claim. In this paper, I analyze information garnered from constituent service records I collected from eight MPs in the long-lived hybrid regime of Jordan as well as the results of a nationwide survey (N=1,499) I carried out in 2014. Almost all dictatorships use clientelist distribution to cement support, but they have difficulty preventing the benefits meant for ordinary citizens from being diverted into elite pockets. I argue that legislative elections increase regime longevity by creating a stratum of mid-level elites with strong incentives to deliver benefits from the central government to ordinary citizens, thus tying citizens into the regime’s support network. The data I present in this paper comprises of more than two thousand letters that parliamentarians wrote to the various arms of the regime on behalf of their constituents over periods from six months to more than two years. The survey provides attitudinal data from the Jordanian voters’ perspective on elections, clientelism, and tribalism. The results of this research offer important insights into the inner workings of clientelism and empirically establish that benefits are actually reaching constituents under authoritarianism. Dictators want to hold elections to maintain support through clientelism, however they do not want to risk ouster. The data I present in this paper shows how the electoral institutional design in Jordan keeps elites divided as each MP is pitted against the others in the fight for patronage, diminishing their ability to unite in opposition against the regime. Elected elites become beholden to the various appointees of the ruler’s central coalition for their help in providing benefits to constituents. Moreover, I demonstrate empirically that the same tribes have been holding onto parliamentary seats from 1989 to 2013. Thus, the parliament provides the regime an affordable and durable means to favor certain sectors of the population with government benefits.

The events of the Arab Spring sparked important questions about whether or not the Arab world is ready for democracy. Although we have some understanding about the political preferences of average citizens and elites in the Arab world, the political preferences of entrepreneurs and particularly owners of small firms in the business community remain a gaping hole in the literature. But as Barrington Moore (1966) famously said: "No bourgeoisie, no democracy." Our paper examines the political preferences of entrepreneurs and small firm owners in the Arab world using quantitative and qualitative methodologies. First, we use the Arab Barometer survey dataset to examine the preferences about democracy among private employers of small firms, grocers, and craftspeople. We find that this segment of the business community has highly nuanced preferences about democracy. Next, we conduct a case study of Jordan based on field work and interviews with over 50 small-scale entrepreneurs. Our research reveals strong support for democracy among certain segments of the business community but deep skepticism about the merits of democracy in others.

This paper will present the final chapter of my dissertation, in which I compare the features and impacts of the first provisional administrations in Tunisia and Libya following the uprisings of 2011. My dissertation seeks to explain the drivers that shape first provisional administrations and their successes and failures, and the impacts they have on later phases of attempted transition from authoritarian rule. The dissertation studies how each first provisional administration formed, how it was structured, the decisions it took and challenges it faced, and how this affected the events and interim governments during the two-year period following the first post-uprising elections. I argue that the actors, institutions and strategies that characterize each provisional administration shed light on their similarities and differences, and that these features in turn help explain the differences in the two-year period following each one’s tenure. In Tunisia, for example, the actors that defined the first provisional administration included long-standing opposition figures, intellectuals and human rights activists, as well as figures associated with the authoritarian regime, while in Libya, the spectrum of actors was much more limited. Such differences informed each provisional administration’s ability to tackle key issues during its tenure as well as the abilities of its successors. The topic of interim governments has received little attention in the transitions literature. Yet as this research shows, interim governments face enormous challenges, and their decisions can determine the direction of the country’s political future. Furthermore, they must delicately balance legitimacy with legality while trying to maintain control and political, if not general, stability (Shain and Linz 1995). By illuminating important aspects of the first interim governments in Tunisia and Libya and how they addressed these challenges, this study makes an important contribution to, first, the scholarship on authoritarian breakdown and political transition, second, the literature on the events of the 2011 Arab uprisings. The paper will draw on interviews conducted in Tunisia and in Washington, D.C. between 2013 and 2015, as well as secondary sources published in the United States, Europe and the Middle East since 2011.