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Sheena Greitens Profile picture
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15 Jul, 10 tweets, 4 min read
This is a really, *really* bad take. Supporting a dictatorship is the opposite of supporting "Cubans' right to choose their own government."
From a political science standpoint, Cuba's lack of democracy is not up for debate. Here is the country's score on two different global democracy-authoritarianism rankings: ImageImage
If you don't like "liberal" democracy, here are five different ways of conceptualizing it. Cuba's still not a democracy, folks. Image
Note: there's legitimate debate over the effects of sanctions etc on authoritarian durability. This statement is.... not informed by that debate. It's just a bad take.
Since a few of y'all asked, here are some studies on sanctions & authoritarian durability. Vulnerability to sanctions pressure varies by regime type; they work better on more personalist regimes.
doi.org/10.1080/102426…
jstor.org/stable/40664170
Some sanctions can assist with pro-regime mobilization, but measures specifically aimed at democracy promotion appear to be associated with improvement in levels of democracy:
doi.org/10.1177/135406…
doi.org/10.1080/135103…
Ben offers important historical context here. But my point remains: if one wants to "look abroad for allies" & side with the oppressed worldwide, this statement still misses the mark.
Not everything is about the US. Sometimes places are repressive dictatorships because of their own internal politics, not because of what the US did/did not do. The embargo (1962) did not make Cuba authoritarian; authoritarianism preceded the embargo by several years: Image
Specifically, recent work in polisci suggests that the Cuban regime may have lasted so long bc of its revolutionary origins (ie, this weighs more than many other factors in a multicausal world): cambridge.org/core/journals/…
For example, non-revolutionary single-party regimes in Africa had a much harder time surviving int'l pressure & economic shock in post-Cold-War world than the revolutionary regimes did. Sound familiar?
cambridge.org/core/journals/…

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More from @SheenaGreitens

Sheena Greitens Profile picture
19 Jul
A LOT of non-democracies have elections.
This is why my Democracy & Dictatorship syllabus has a whole section on "why authoritarian regimes have features that look like democracies (courts, legislatures, elections, etc)": Image
I mean, North Korea has *elections*: Image
There is a whole literature on competitive/electoral authoritarianism, which has been described (in Mexico) as:
a “soccer match where the goalposts were of different heights & breadths & where one team included 11 players plus the umpire & the other a mere 6-7 players."
Read 8 tweets
Sheena Greitens Profile picture
12 Jul
For those watching protests in Cuba: mass protest is necessary, but often not sufficient to get democratization. History/polisci/statistics tell us that a lot will hinge on elite & police/military response to the protests.
Most autocrats (65%) fall to other elites; @MilanSvolik calculated that only about 20% of dictatorships end via popular uprising or transition to democracy.
And about 1/2 of autocracies that do fall are replaced by other autocracies. Democracy is hard, y'all.
There is a lot of good work on what causes security forces (mil, police, etc) to stay loyal to regime or defect in these crises. In my book, I found that the more representative the security force is, the harder repression becomes for frontline officers: social costs are high.
Read 9 tweets
Sheena Greitens Profile picture
17 May
So @BrankoMilan your "impression," again, is sth political science has been saying since at least.... 2002? Try Levitsky & Way, which has been cited a mere 7000x (2002 article + 2010 book). This is not a new take. No-one thinks autocracy is just "failed democracy." 1/2
This is why the opening paragraph of my book reads the way it does. Because what you @BrankoMilan seem to think is new is pretty darn conventional wisdom as of at least 5-8 years ago. 2/2
Many ppl responding, @BrankoMilan, are citing core work in *comparative politics,* not area studies. On your comments re regime type, see Geddes (1999), Geddes, Wright & Franz (2018), or any of the scholarship that uses the NSF-funded dataset they built:
sites.psu.edu/dictators/
Read 4 tweets
Sheena Greitens Profile picture
16 May
Hi again, @BrankoMilan, there is not good empirical justification for this statement, only an unfamiliarity with the relevant bodies of scholarship. There is a LOT of comparative work integrating non-Western welfare, citizenship, electoral regimes, etc.
I teach a global course on "democracy & dictatorship." Here's the opening week on how we measure/define democracy, which uses metrics/tools explicitly designed to avoid over-reliance on Western conceptions.
Here's a week on elections & other political institutions under autocracy, where key Q is to what extent these institutions serve same functions under dem/autocratic systems, & to what extent functions differ.
Read 4 tweets
Sheena Greitens Profile picture
4 May
Excited to share a new article in Journal of Korean Studies (@JournalKorea) on how geopolitical considerations shape the citizenship claims of North Koreans, as well as the ROK state's response to those claims:
dx.doi.org/10.1215/073116…
It's pretty common to hear "North Koreans get automatic citizenship in South Korea." That idea's been used to turn down NKoreans seeking resettlement in other countries. But in practice, claiming citizenship status is much more difficult than the phrase "automatic" implies. 2/
Acquiring effective South Korean citizenship is difficult, protracted (multi-stage process before NKorean resettlers are accorded full rights of citizenship), & contingent, especially when trying to claim that one should be treated as an ROK citizen *abroad.* 3/
Read 10 tweets
Sheena Greitens Profile picture
13 Apr
I think this is the wrong question.
CIs were, by design, embedded in US universities in ways that other countries' outreach hasn't been.
What justifies giving Confucius Institutes continued *preferential* treatment in US higher ed--that eg Alliance Française etc do not get?
If Hanban (or its successor org) want to fund teaching Chinese language, give $ to the university & let the university do the hiring/curriculum independently, w/o donor influence. That's how eg Korea Foundation-funded faculty lines work - but not CIs.
Or if Chinese side wants to keep control over personnel, programs, & curriculum, set up a nonprofit like Alliance Française & operate outside the university context. That's another valid option.
Read 4 tweets

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