This chapter describes the repression of the diversity of sexualities and the affirmation of heteronormative and patriarchal sexuality as a central element in dictatorships in the twentieth century.In authoritarian and dictatorial contexts, masculinity and virility serve as a basis for political power. This has led to historical contexts in which misogyny, patriarchy, and heteronormativity are highly valued socially, and diverse sexual practices and gender identities criminalized, with the imprisonment of women who assume roles and actions that are considered outside their remit as women. The first part of the chapter offers examples of how authoritarian regimes, such as Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Spain under Franco and Portugal under Salazar, were particularly violent against diverse gender and sexualities. The second part highlights the Dictatorships in Latin America, including the importance of the Cold War and anti-communism and the connection of both with moral issues, founded on doctrines of national security. The final section discusses how LGBTQ+ people, often allied with feminists, started organisations that questioned these repressive discourses and practices, and thus contributed to the end of the dictatorships, although that role has barely been recognized by leftist parties and resistance organisations, in what remains a very tense relationship.

This chapter lays out a novel theory of elite cohesion, coercive capacity, and authoritarian social order. Enabling and controlling coercive agents is a fundamental challenge confronting all dictators. Actors like secret police chiefs pose a grave threat to incumbent authoritarian elites because they hold the means of violence and could use them to overthrow their masters. Elites’ task of monitoring and controlling their coercive agents is a collective action problem. All members of an authoritarian ruling coalition are better off if they cooperate to control coercive agents. However, individual authoritarian elites have incentives to defect from cooperation. When authoritarian elites cannot cooperate to prevent insubordination by coercive agents, they reduce coercive capacity. Institutions promote authoritarian elite cohesion. They provide structures of shared expectations or focal points that allow authoritarian elites to pool their resources, cooperate, and control coercive agents. In Cold War communist Central and Eastern Europe, Stalinism was the institutional structure that promoted elite cohesion and led to the construction of large, capable coercive institutions across the region.

In this conclusion, I draw broader lessons for the study of authoritarian regimes from the analyses of this book. I call for greater attention to coercive institutions by scholars of authoritarian politics, and for authoritarian regimes to be theorized as groups rather than unitary actors. I briefly discuss the applicability of my theoretical argument to the Chinese case. Under Mao Zedong, breakdown of elite cohesion during the Cultural Revolution was associated with a decline in the capacity of the Ministry of Public Security. This mirrors reductions in coercive capacity after post-Stalinist transitions in Central and Eastern Europe.

Chapter 3 introduces the theoretical framework with an examination of the regime’s changing approach to labor control. It explains why the Chinese regime has moved away from overt coercion and adopted atomized incorporation and argues that the change could be understood from a political economy perspective. The empirical findings show that the central government and the local governments in developed industrial regions have a new incentive to implement pro-labor policies, even when they undermine the profitability of export-oriented sectors. The chapter contrasts the specific components of the new strategy with the strategies of authoritarian labor control observed in Latin America and East Asia.

Chapter 4 is an examination of workers’ blame attribution, looking at when workers direct their grievances to the central government vis-`a-vis other actors. It demonstrates that migrant workers’ social grievances about limited upward mobility, income inequality, and unfairness grow as they gain experience as migrants. While atomized protests focus on economic grievances pertaining to a specific job, the empirical analyses of survey data show that social grievances pose a bigger threat to the regime, since they change the direction of blame attribution. Protest participants are less likely to blame the central government than nonparticipants, which could imply that those that blame the central government might not be interested in atomized protests.

Chapter 7 argues that law-abiding firms’ concerns for reputation generate discursive resources, which contribute to workers’ expectations of success. Unlike collective action for legal rights, interest-based protests rarely use disruptive tactics that physically expand the scope of conflict. Instead, workers use publicity tactics to attract the attention of third-party allies who exercise direct influence over the target firm’s policies. The main channel examined in this chapter is media exposure. It shows that workers at law-abiding firms have more discursive resources due to their firms newsworthiness and thus are more prone to expect that their protests would succeed. This shows that even in the more favorable environment for atomized protests, not all workers have the resources to engage in collective action. By limiting social mobilization, the regime has been able to manage the frequency and nature of atomized protests. At the same time, workers with the resources to engage in atomized protests are much less likely to hold the central government responsible for the situation they are in.

Chapter 8 reviews the main arguments of the book, with a discussion about how they can be applied to the new political environment in the Xi era and beyond. The chapter shows that the frequency of atomized protests did not necessarily decline in the Xi era, but its nature changed substantially. The number of interest-based protests declined dramatically, and this could be related to the Xi regimes tighter control over civil society actors such as journalists and labor NGOs. Based on two prominent cases of government crackdown on labor NGOs, the chapter demonstrates that atomized incorporation inevitably requires the regimes continued efforts to monitor and punish defectors. The chapter discusses long-term implications of atomized incorporation by looking at subtle forms of noncooperation.

This chapter introduces the theoretical framework of the book. It shows that the conundrum of a consensual world order can be disentangled by analyzing the mechanisms through which incumbents and potential challengers can gain and maintain power. For the United States, the fundamental challenge is to channel the political ambitions of potential successor leaders toward good governance and respect of human rights while avoiding becoming entangled with any specific incumbent in partner nations. Domestic political institutions that foster political successors and allow for regular and flexible channels of leadership turnover make it easier for the United States to attain friendly relations by easing more accommodating leaders into power. In a special twist, institutions that allow for regular and flexible channels of leadership turnover also create domestic political incentives that foster the attainment of better governance and more respect of human rights. In contrast, domestic political institutions that concentrate power in the hands of the incumbents, and curtail political competition, make it more difficult for the United States to exercise influence.

In recent years, nations around the world have fallen prey to what might be described as a crisis of ineffective government. Basic governmental functions and services, such as ensuring education, health care, and a strong economy, are deeply compromised. Not only does ineffective governance undermine the general welfare, it can also pave the way for authoritarian regimes to take hold in erstwhile democracies. In their bid for power, autocratic leaders have often capitalized on citizens’ disenchantment with governance failures. In response to the rise of authoritarianism in democratic nations, considerable scholarly attention has been paid to the relationship between constitutionalist structures and democratic sustainability.

Chapter 3 demonstrates why Libyan, Syrian, and Yemeni mobilization was weak before the Arab Spring. The author shows how two transnational social forces--transnational repression and conflict transmission--depressed and deterred anti-regime mobilization by embedding diasporas in authoritarian systems of control and sociopolitical antagonisms through members' home-country ties.

This chapter begins by highlighting that public anger over corruption can have punishing political effects, making curbing it a critical issue for powerholders everywhere. I note that existing scholarship on corruption control focuses heavily on democracies and does not explain under what conditions authoritarian regimes combat and reduce corruption. I discuss the conventional wisdom about how autocrats do not have incentives to curb corruption and how my book challenges this view by showing a surprising number of meaningful anti-corruption efforts by authoritarian regimes. I lay out my argument for when and why authoritarian regimes are most likely to curb corruption, describe this book’s main cases in China, South Korea, and Taiwan, and introduce my novel scoring system for anti-corruption efforts. I then discuss the various theoretical implications of my argument for the broader study of authoritarian politics and governance. Finally, I give a chapter-by-chapter outline of the book to come.