On the stability of autocratic legalist regimes in South Asia

Where does the political economy of the autocratic legalist regime’s stability intersect with ontological security in the post-colonial nation-building context? This article explores this question by analysing South Asian autocratic legalists’ strategies in internal balancing and maintaining ontological security. The political economy framework of state stability explains how autocratic legalists support regime and state stability by emphasising economic growth, repressing dissent and implementing self-rationalised public policies. This creates an urgent need to manage collective anxieties through ideational control, which requires institutional control to maintain internal balance. As a result, undermining the judiciary through the executive is a common challenge in South Asian post-colonial nation-building, playing a key role in democratic erosion alongside the rise of autocratic legalists. The goal is to understand how internal balancing and ontological security work together to stabilise the embodied state by examining the stability of autocratic legalist regimes in post-colonial South Asia.