Deer in headlights: Incompetence and weak authoritarianism after the Cold War

Slavic Review

Volumn 71, Issue 3, 2012, Pages 619-646

  Way, Lucan A ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 84865836585     PISSN: 00376779     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5612/slavicreview.71.3.0619     Document Type: Note

References (144)

1. Notable exceptions include Robert H. Jackson and Carl Gustav Rosberg, Personal Rule in Black Africa: Prince, Autocrat, Prophet, Tyrant (Berkeley, 1982).
2. For a similar definition, see David S. Bell, Erwin C. Hargrove, and Kevin Theakston, "Skill in Context: A Comparison of Politicians, " Presidential Studies Quarterly 29, no. 3 (September 1999): 529.
3. Bienen and van de Walle, Of Time and Political Power, 7.
4. Holger Albrecht and Oliver Schlumberger, "'Waiting for Godot': Regime Change without Democratization in the Middle East, " International Political Science Review / Revue internationale de science politique 25, no. 4 (October 2004): 378.
5. Bienen and van de Walle note that it is hard "to isolate leaders' skills and to determine how important these have been for a leader's ability to maintain himself in power. " See Bienen and van de Walle, Of Time and Political Power, 5.
6. For example, Fred Greenstein's comparative study of presidential leadership from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama offers no systematic treatment of the radically different economic, international, and political constraints that have confronted different presidents since 1933. See Fred Greenstein, The Presidential Difference: Leadership Style from FDR to Barack Obama (Princeton, 2009).
7. See Vladimir Litvin, Ukraina: Politika, Politiki, Vlast' na fone politicheskogo portreta L. Krav chuka (Kiev, 1997), 280.
8. See Bienen and van de Walle, Of Time and Political Power.
9. Guillermo A. O'Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore, 1986).
10. See, for example, Silitski, "Preempting Democracy".
11. Silitski, "Preempting Democracy. "
12. This idea is broadly similar to O'Donnell and Schmitter's argument that the interests of actors will be uncertain during periods of transition. See O'Donnell and Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule.
13. Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, "Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, " Science 185 (1974): 1124-314.
14. The phenomena described here are similar to what Arthur Stinchcomb referred to in another context as a "liability of newness, " which causes disproportionate failure early in an organization's lifespan. See Arthur Stinchcombe, "Social Structure and Organizations, " in James G. March, ed., Handbook of Organizations (Chicago, 1965), 142-93.
15. See Larry Diamond, Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (Baltimore, 1999).
16. Thomas Callaghy, "Africa and the World Economy: Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place, " in John W. Harbeson and Donald S. Rothchild, eds., Africa in World Politics (Boulder, Colo., 1991).
17. Letitia Lawson, "External Democracy Promotion in Africa: Another False Start?" Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 37, no. 1 (1999): 1-30.
18. Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way, "The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism, " Journal of Democracy 13, no. 2 (April 2002): 51-65.
19. Michael Bratton and Nicolas van de Walle, Democratic Experiments in Africa: Regime Transitions in Comparative Perspective (New York, 1997), 182-83.
20. "It was in the initial period of uncertainty, when donors appeared to be most serious about tying aid to democracy that the most dramatic regime transitions occurred. " Lawson, "External Democracy Promotion, " 5.
21. In particular, a widespread assumption persisted from the Soviet era that simple saturation of exposure on television was sufficient to control public opinion. See Ellen Mickiewicz, Changing Channels: Television and the Struggle for Power in Russia (Oxford, 1999), 27-28.
22. Gleb Pavlovskii quoted in Andrew Wilson, Virtual Politics: Faking Democracy in the Post-Soviet World (New Haven, 2005), 39.
23. Tversky and Kahneman, "Judgment under Uncertainty"; Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow. They refer to this as the "availability heuristic. "
24. See Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman, 1991), 100-106.
25. Jorge Dominguez has written of "spectacular leadership errors" by leaders in Chile and the Philippines in which "rulers confident that they had substantial public support called a national election, which they promptly lost. " See Jorge I. Dominguez, "The Secrets of Castro's Staying Power, " Foreign Affairs 72, no. 2 (Spring 1993): 99. I should stress that I am not arguing that such mistakes were the primary reason for transitions in these countries. Rather, overconfidence likely contributed to the timing and speed of transitions in these countries.
26. Thus, the argument here is that both fatalism about the opposition's success, on the one hand, and extreme overconfidence in an incumbent victory, on the other, was likely to lead to democratic concessions in the post-Cold War international context. By contrast, situations in which incumbents do not believe that opposition victory is inevitable but still think opponents have a good chance of winning would seem to discourage democratic concessions.
27. See John M. Mwanakatwe, End of the Kaunda Era (Lusaka, 1994), 260.
28. See Bratton and van de Walle, Democratic Experiments in Africa, 181.
29. As most students of the color revolutions argue, for example, structural weaknesses-in addition to demonstration effects-were key to authoritarian failure in the early 2000s. Beissinger, "Structure and Example"; Bunce and Wolchik, Defeating Authoritarian Leaders.
30. On Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, and Zambia, see Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism, chaps. 5 and 6.
31. Learning is defined here as a change in beliefs about causal relationships in the light of experience. See Covadonga Meseguer, "Policy Learning, Policy Diffusion, and the Making of a New Order, " Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, no. 598 (March 2005): 67-82.
32. See Silitski, "Preempting Democracy"
33. Michael Bratton and Daniel Posner, "A First Look at Second Elections in Africa, with Illustrations from Zambia, " in Richard A. Joseph, ed., State, Conflict, and Democracy in Africa (Boulder, Colo., 1999), 387.
34. Of course, the opposition may also learn from past mistakes. In a context where structural conditions favor authoritarianism, however, such learning is likely to be insufficient to maintain robust political competition.
35. Richard Joseph, "Overview: The Reconfiguration of Power in Late Twentieth-Century Africa, " in Joseph, ed., State, Conflict, and Democracy in Africa, 61.
36. Ukraine continued to be one of the highest per capita recipients of U.S. assistance in 2000 following highly fraudulent presidential elections in 1999. In Russia following Boris El'tsin's violent crackdown on the legislature in 1993, U.S. aid increased from $1.5 billion in 1993 to $1.9 billion in 1994. See U.S. Department of State, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs Fact Sheets, "Foreign Operations Appropriated Assistance" for various countries at www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/fs/ (last accessed 6 June 2012).
37. Wilson, Virtual Politics, 49-72.
38. See Silitski, "Preempting Democracy. "
39. "Just as the Soviet economic elite was at first threatened by free prices and privatization, the Soviet political elite has learned how to use and manipulate elections to maintain political power. " Michael McFaul and Nikolai Petrov, "What the Elections Tell Us, " Journal of Democracy 15, no. 3 (July 2004): 28.
40. They note that leaders such as Daniel arap Moi in Kenya and Leonid Brezhnev in the Soviet Union were vastly underestimated before they came to power. Bienen and van de Walle, Of Time and Political Power, 6.
41. It is true that in Central Asia, many leaders-Saparmurat Niiazov, Islam Karimov, Nursultan Nazarbaev-survived despite having risen under the old system. Yet, in these cases, international democratizing pressure was weaker and the political institutions changed to a much less significant degree than in republics closer to the European border. As a result, disorientation was likely less severe.
42. Jeffrey Kopstein and David A. Reilly, "Geographic Diffusion and the Transformation of the Postcommunist World, " World Politics 53, no. 1 (October 2000): 1-37.
43. Milada Vachudova, Europe Undivided: Democracy, Leverage and Integration after Communism (Oxford, 2005).
44. International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), Pre-Election Technical Assessment of the Parliamentary Elections in Belarus (Washington, D.C., 1994), 20.
45. Scholars have long argued that state control over the economy facilitates autocratic control. See M. Steven Fish, Democracy Derailed in Russia: The Failure of Open Politics (New York., 2005).
46. According to Liudmilla Alexeyeva and Valery Chalidze's comprehensive examination of mass unrest in the USSR from 1953 to 1983, "the only political demonstration known in Byelorussia" occurred in Minsk in 1970 when a group of students openly protested the killing of a high school student. Liudmilla Alexeyeva and Valery Chalidze, "Mass Unrest in the USSR" (Report No. 19, Office of Net Assessment of the Department of Defense, August 1985), 129. For the Gorbachev period, see, for example, Mark R. Beissinger, Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State (New York, 2002), 254. To an important extent, this was due to the relative weakness of an anti-Soviet national identity that was used to mobilize against incumbent regimes in neighboring republics. As of the late 1980s, "the Belarusian national idea was represented by a group of well-meaning intellectuals unconnected with the vast majority of Belarusians, unable to coopt a single member of the ruling elite. " Andrei Savchenko, "Belarus: A Perpetual Borderland" (unpublished manuscript, 2008), 212.
47. Beissinger, Nationalist Mobilization, 254. One partial exception were the significant anticommunist strikes in April 1991 that fizzled after demands to call an emergency session of the Supreme Soviet were not met. See RFE/RL Newsline, 11, 24, 29 April 1991.
48. Narodnaia hazeta, 26 January 1991, 2.
49. Alexander Lukashuk, "Yesterday as Tomorrow: Why It Works in Belarus, " East European Constitutional Review 7, no. 3 (Summer 1998), at www1.law.nyu.edu/eecr/vol7num3/ special/belarus.html (last accessed 6 June 2012). Of course, the opposition also lacked extensive experience with competitive politics. Yet in contrast to members of the government-almost all of whom had been appointed prior to the introduction of competitive elections-opposition figures were self-selected by their political abilities. They had gained prominence because of their abilities to speak in public, mobilize support, and organize demonstrations.
50. In Ukraine, Kravchuk was chosen to replace the departing Vladimir Ivashko as head of the legislature because of his perceived success in debating Ukrainian nationalists. Bohdan Krawchenko, "Ukraine: The Politics of Independence, " in Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras, eds., Nations and Politics in the Soviet Successor States (Cambridge, Eng., 1993), 77. In Moldova, Snegur was able to hold onto the chairmanship of parliament in 1990 by making a deal with the Moldovan Popular Front. And in Russia, El'tsin of course gained power on the basis of popular antipathy to the communist system.
51. Michael Urban, An Algebra of Soviet Power: Elite Circulation in the Belorussian Republic, 1966-86 (Cambridge, Eng., 1989), 122.
52. For a detailed description of the intra-elite dynamics that apparently led to Kebich's selection, see Viacheslav Kebich, Iskushenie vlast'iu: Iz zhizni premier-ministra (Minsk, 2008), 44-50.
53. Aleksandr I. Feduta, Lukashenko: Politicheskaia biografiia (Moscow, 2005), 128.
54. Aleksandr I. Feduta, Lukashenko: Politicheskaia biografiia (Moscow, 2005), 128.
55. Andrei Sannikau, former official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, interview, Minsk, 3 July 2004.
56. Olga Kryshtanovskaya and Stephen White, "From Soviet Nomenklatura to Russian Elite, " Europe-Asia Studies 48, no. 5 (July 1996): 711-33.
57. Thus, in contrast to some other authoritarian single-party states in Africa or Latin America, the Communist Party did not face even nominal political competition from other parties and officials did not compete openly for party nomination.
58. Between 1953 and 1983, there were only 45 nonstate mass actions (including riots at sports events) of a thousand or more participants. Louise I. Shelley, Policing Soviet Society: The Evolution of State Control (New York, 1996), 181-82.
59. Kryshtanovskaya and White, "From Soviet Nomenklatura, " 714.
60. For studies emphasizing the personalistic character of late communist rule, see, for example, Kenneth Jowitt's discussion of communist neotraditionalism. Jowitt, New World Disorder: The Leninist Extinction (Berkeley, 1992).
61. Kryshtanovskaya and White, "From Soviet Nomenklatura, " 714. Michael Urban's monumental study of elite circulation in Belarus from 1966 to 1986 documents some important exceptions to the hierarchical system of career advancement. Urban, An Algebra of Soviet Power, 32-34. Nevertheless, his study shows "considerable... similarity" between actual career trajectories and the "hierarchy based on the formal rank positions" (35).
62. Kebich, Iskushenie, 43.
63. Archie Brown, The Gorbachev Factor (Oxford, 1996), 162.
64. Narodnaia hazeta, 26 January 1991, 2. This author gives figures of 170 from the Communists (49 percent); "Soiuz" (Union) faction 30 (9 percent); Industrialialists 35 (10 percent); Agrarians 40 (12 percent); BPF 27 (8 percent).
65. In 1988, Gorbachev drastically reduced the party's formal power over the economy and made parliament the highest government institution. See Brown, Gorbachev Factor.
66. Through mid-1991, most deputies and government officials were party members and the party had cells distributed throughout the country.
67. TASS, 18 January 1991; Narodnaia hazeta, 19 January 1991, 1; Narodnaia hazeta, 10 April 1991, 1.
68. For example, an effort by communist leader Anatol Malafeeu to introduce martial law in the early summer of 1991 went nowhere. Narodnaia hazeta, 8 June 1991, 1.
69. Kebich, Iskushenie, 65, 168.
70. Central Committee archives of the Belarusian Communist Party, Kalendarnyi plan podgotovki nar. deputatov kommunitov k sessii VR BSSR dlia organizatsiii prakticheskoi rabot. Dekret Ts K KPB V. Tikhinia-7-24 91.
71. Aliaksandar Dabravolski, deputy USSR Congress of People's Deputies; deputy Belarusian parliament 13th convocation, Vice Chairman United Civil Party, interview, Minsk, 21 June 2004. Also see, Kebich, Iskushenie, 65.
72. Gerasiuk, Agoniia nomenklatury, 53.
73. Quote from party activist at a Minsk party meeting in January 1991. "Kriticheskiie zamechanie i predlozhenii vyskazanikh kommunista v khode otchete vyborov v Minskoi gorodskoi partiinoi organizatsii, " 9 Ianv. 91 #00076, Central Committee archives of the Belarusian Communist Party. Longtime party officials faced severe difficulties maintaining order at parliamentary sessions. Kebich, Iskushenie, 66, 100.
74. Party leaders, according to Kebich, acted as though "someone had deprived them of consciousness and paralyzed their will. " Kebich, Iskushenie, 140.
75. Feduta, Lukashenko, 32.
76. Narodnaia hazeta, 27 August 1991, 1, 3.
77. Narodnaia hazeta, 27 August 1991, 1, 3.
78. Pavel Kazlauski, minister of defense under Kebich, interview, Minsk, 23 June 2004; Leanid Kozik, chairman, Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus, deputy Belarusian parliament 12th and 13th convocations, interview, Minsk, 8 July 2004. Kebich, Iskushenie, 103. According to Kazlauski, "Pazniak was very powerful. If he had not been such a fool, he could have taken charge. " Kazlauski, interview, Minsk, 23 June 2004.
79. Narodnaia hazeta, 19 September 1991, 1. Quote from Narodnaia hazeta, 5-7 February 1994, 2.
80. Liavon Barshcheuskii, deputy Belarusian parliament 12th convocation, BPF leader, interview, Minsk, 30 June 2004.
81. Foreign Broadcast Information Service-Soviet Union, 4 December 1992, 35. Stanislau Shushkevich, head of Belarusian parliament 12th convocation, interview, Minsk, 23 June 2004. According to Kebich, the "real levers of power over the economy were with the prime minister.... The Supreme Soviet did not even have its own automobiles. Such dependence on me was exceptionally unpleasant for [Shushkevich]. " Kebich, Iskushenie, 228, 188. At the same time, Shushkevich did continue to have influence in international relations as the official representative of Belarus who met with El'tsin as well as President Bill Clinton when he visited Belarus in early 1994.
82. According to World Bank numbers, the Belarusian economy declined by 19 percent between 1990 and 1993. Economic performance is a widely cited and important factor shaping regime stability. See, for example, Huntington, Third Wave, 50-58.
83. Armenia's president Levon Ter Petrosian survived in power in the face of an economic decline of 63 percent from 1991 to 1993; while El'tsin clung to power in the face of a downturn of 50 percent from 1991 to 1996.
84. IFES, Pre-Election Technical Assessment, 28-29.
85. Vladimir Egorov, Zvezdy i terni Vladimira Egorova (Minsk, 2003).
86. Feduta, Lukashenko, 157.
87. In 1993, 66 percent of periodicals in Belarus were controlled by the government or government-controlled entities. Savchenko, "Belarus, " 241. Vladimir Alekseevich Reznikau, KGB official, interview, Minsk, 13 July 2004; Narodnaia hazeta, 14 September 1991, 3.
88. Kravchuk in Ukraine subsequently lost power on exactly the same day-10 July 1994-as Kebich. In Azerbaijan, President Ayaz Mutalibov lost power in a military coup in 1992.
89. According to a 1994 IFES report, "government officials... admitted that they [felt] no pressure from Western democracies to hold early elections. " IFES, Pre-Election Technical Assessment, 20.
90. According to existing laws, elections were not supposed to take place until 1995. Kebich put tremendous effort into assuring that the legislature passed a new constitution instituting presidential rule in the spring of 1994. Narodnaia hazeta, 16 March 1994, 1. For example, one government advisor reports that Kebich even brought to Minsk several Belarusian legislators elected in 1990 who had since taken Russian citizenship in order to get them to vote for the presidential constitution. Siarhei Leushunou constitutional expert active in preparation of 1994 constitution in parliament, interview, Minsk, 24 June 2004. Kebich states in his memoirs that, while he was not "absolutely sure" of his victory, he "believed [he] would win. " Kebich, Iskushenie, 408, 8.
91. Feduta, Lukashenko, 77.
92. David Rotman, director of the Belarusian State University Centre for Sociological and Political Research and pollster for the Kebich presidential campaign, interview, Minsk, 17 June 2004.
93. As Mechyslau Hryb, a Kebich ally and head of parliament, noted, "at that point, we paid little attention to polls. We had no experience and were not used to such things. " Mechyslau Hryb, interview, Minsk, 24 June 2004. Polls were often seen as simply a propaganda tool used by competing sides to convince the public that their side would win. Indeed, some of Kebich's own people may have provided false numbers suggesting stronger than actual support for the prime minister-a fact that further encouraged Kebich's overconfidence. Kebich, Iskushenie, 11-12; Rotman, interview, Minsk, 17 June 2004.
94. Kebich, Iskushenie, 404.
95. Feduta, Lukashenko, 71, 119-20.
96. This may be partly attributable to the fact that Kebich had, in fact, run against (and defeated) Lukashenka in elections to the USSR Congress of People's Deputies in 1989. Thus, for Kebich, the results of the 1994 election were "unexpected" and something he had "not imagined even in [his] nightmares. " Kebich, Iskushenie, 432, 428. After Lukashenka was elected in June 1994, Kebich's supporters "were obviously completely shocked; for them Lukashenka was just some clown, who was never a threat. " Vaclau Areshka, social scientist and activist in the Shushkevich presidential campaign, interview, Minsk, 6 July 2004. See also Feduta, Lukashenko, 149-51. Kebich insists that he took Lukashenka seriously-in part because of his previous experience battling Lukashenka in 1989. Kebich, Iskushenie, 410. But from his memoirs, it is not clear when in 1994 he began to see Lukashenka as a serious threat (just before the election as most observers suggest or earlier). Kebich's claim is contradicted both by the actions of his campaign and by Kebich's own expressions of surprise at Lukashenka's victory.
97. At times Lukashenka openly aligned himself with the BPF-attending several leadership meetings and even suggesting that he take a leadership role in the party. Feduta, Lukashenko, 50; Vincuk Viachorka, chairman BPF, interview, Minsk, 29 June 2004. In an ironically prescient article published in May 1991, Lukashenka called for more rapid economic reform and warned of the emergence of a new "Belarusian dictatorship. " At the same time, Lukashenka often sided with the Belarusian Communist Party on specific policy questions. As one deputy noted at the time, "I don't get Lukashenka. In the morning he is with the communists, but in the evening he is with the BPF. Which side is he on?" Quoted in Feduta, Lukashenko, 51, 53-54. Considered by many to be a demagogue and populist, Lukashenka refused to align himself strongly with any group and was known primarily for speaking on a wide variety of topics. Feduta, Lukashenko, 52.
98. Feduta, Lukashenko, 64.
99. Siarhei Antonchyk, deputy Belarusian parliament 12th convocation, member of BPF, and leader of strikes in April 1991, interview, Minsk, 3 July 2004.
100. Brown, Gorbachev Factor, 162.
101. Kebich, Iskushenie, 42.
102. The commission was created at the behest of Shushkevich, Zenon Pazniak, and Antonchyk from the BPF. After Kebich ally Mikhail Marinich turned down the position, Shushkevich proposed that Lukashenka head the commission. Shushkevich, interview, Minsk, 23 June 2004.
103. Shushkevich, interview, Minsk, 23 June 2004; Hyrb, interview, Minsk, 24 June 2004.
104. Former Kebich associate, interview, Belarus, July 2004; Hryb, interview, Minsk, 24 June 2004.
105. Feduta, Lukashenko, 91; Anatol Liabedzka, deputy Belarusian parliament 12th and 13th convocations, advisor to Lukashenka's presidential campaign in 1994, and current member of the opposition, interview, Minsk, 12 July 2004.
106. According to several KGB sources, the head of the agency at the time fed Lukashenka material aimed at undermining Kebich's reputation. Reznikau, interview, Minsk, 13 July 2004; Siarhei Aniska, KGB official in Kontrrazvedki 1994-1995, interview, Minsk, 14 July 2004.
107. Lukashenka failed to uncover any new corruption and no prosecutions emanated from a final report. Instead, the speech made broad accusations of corruption and focused on actions-such as ministers driving foreign cars-that made officials look bad but were hardly illegal. The absence of specific allegations of illegal activity brought an initial sigh of relief among government leaders and parliamentarians. Feduta, Lukashenko, 99.
108. "Lukashenka gave a speech that identified the 'jack-asses' who steal and are responsible for why the population lives so badly. The speech was discussed by everyone everywhere.... Now, everyone knew him... as the unstoppable fighter for justice against the entire power structure. " Feduta, Lukashenko, 103, 113.
109. Savchenko, "Belarus, " 248.
110. Kebich, Iskushenie, 417. Thus, Kebich's campaign never engaged in the kind of strong negative campaign against Lukashenka that Kebich directed against Pazniak. Vardamacki, interview, Minsk, 6 July 2004.
111. Feduta, Lukashenko, 15-17.
112. Feduta, Lukashenko, 15-17.
113. Svetlana Gol'dade, head of the Executive Committee of the City of Gomel' 1990-1994, interview, Gomel', 9 July 2004; Kozik, interview, Minsk, 8 July 2004.
114. Narodnaia hazeta, 7-9 May 1994, 2 and 12 May 1994, 1. Given Kebich's degree of influence over the state, one commentator suggested that the only way to have a fair election would be for the head of parliament to run for president because "then government workers would have to decide which government leader to obey. " Narodnaia hazeta, 18 May 1994, 1.
115. Kebich, Iskushenie, 10.
116. For example, an anti-Kebich mayor in one large city was able to resist Kebich's efforts to fire her in early 1994 simply by refusing to resign in the face of pressure from the Council of Ministers. Gol'dade, interview, Gomel', 9 July 2004.
117. Valery Fadzeyeu, interview, Council of Ministers advisor on local government issues until 1994, on constitutional court 1994-1996, interview, Minsk, 2 June 2004. For example, the deputy mayor of Gomel' recalled that pro-Kebich leaflets dropped off at the city council were never distributed because of widespread support for Shushkevich. Aliaksandar Karnienka, former USSR deputy, former deputy mayor of Gomel', interview, Minsk, 30 June 2004. Another former local official from Mogilev reported that many from his region would "go to [the capital] and report to Kebich 'we support you 100 percent'-but then fail to do the most basic activities to support his candidacy. " Uladzimir Navasiad, deputy in Palata predstavitelei, deputy Belarusian parliament 13th convocation, interview, Minsk, 8 July 2004. In his memoirs, Kebich complains of "betrayal" by the state apparatus and asserts that his campaign "did not lift a finger" to get him elected. Kebich, Iskushenie, 18, 14.
118. As Silitski notes, "incumbents had not yet learned the finer points of manipulation and rigging. " Silitski, "Preempting Democracy, " 86.
119. Kebich, Iskushenie, 428.
120. Narodnaia hazeta, 30 June 1994, 1.
121. In contrast to the other major candidates, Lukashenka had virtually no organization that could help him get the word out. Sheremet and Kalinkina, Sluchainyi prezident, 32. He therefore might easily have remained a marginal figure.
122. For invaluable descriptions of Lukashenka's speaking style and political instincts, see Sheremet and Kalinkina, Sluchainyi prezident, 18.
123. Savchenko, "Belarus, " 279.
124. Mark Blyth, "Structures Do Not Come with an Instruction Sheet: Interests, Ideas, and Progress in Political Science, " Perspectives on Politics 1, no. 4 (December 2003): 695-706.
125. See Sheremet and Kalinkina, Sluchainyi prezident.
126. Interfax, 27 September 1994; Feduta, Lukashenko, 207-8.
127. Narodnaia hazeta, 4 August 1994, 1.
128. Narodnaia hazeta, 21 October 1994, 1.
129. Pavel Daneika, deputy Belarusian parliament 13th convocation, interview, Minsk, 6 July 2004; Rotman, interview, Minsk, 17 June 2004.
130. Sheremet and Kalinkina, Sluchainyi prezident, 37.
131. In November and December 1994, he personally traveled to numerous locales to supervise the replacement of local representatives. Narodnaia hazeta, 29 November 1994, 1; 30 November 1994, 1; 2 December 1994, 1; 10-12 December 1994, 1; 14 December 1994, 1. Lukashenka also replaced many in the Cabinet of Ministers and Ministry of Defense. See Narodnaia hazeta, 31 August 1994, 2.
132. Kebich, Iskushenie, 338.
133. Kebich, Iskushenie, 338.
134. "Earlier there were set procedures for everything. But now [under Lukashenka] that was all destroyed. " Daneika, interview, Minsk, 6 July 2004.
135. Feduta, Lukashenko, 309.
136. Silitski, "Preempting Democracy. "
137. Feduta, Lukashenko, 497.
138. McFaul and Petrov, "What the Elections Tell Us, " 28.
139. See Freedom House scores 1991-2000 at www.freedomhouse.org/reports (accessed September 2008; no longer accessible).
140. Bratton and Posner, "A First Look. "
141. See, most notably, Larry Diamond, Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies throughout the World (New York, 2008).
142. Larry Diamond, "The Democratic Rollback: The Resurgence of the Predatory State, " Foreign Affairs 87, no. 2 (March-April 2008): 36-48.
143. I thank Mark D. Steinberg for suggesting this parallel.
144. For full text of speech on 10 February 2011, see "Egypt Unrest: Full Text of Hosni Murbarak's Speech, at www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12427091 (last accessed 6 June 2012).