Accomplices in Power: Elite Binding and the Durability of Electoral Authoritarian Regimes

Why do elite coalitions in some electoral authoritarian regimes hold together when shrinking rents, contested legitimacy, and credible exit options should produce defection? The post-Soviet “blackmail state” literature shows that rulers cultivate complicity as a leash, but this explains why compromised elites fear defection, not why they cease to want it. This article identifies a mechanism—accomplice-making—through which dictators convert pragmatic collaborators into self-binding partisans by conditioning power on publicly attributable transgression. It unfolds in three stages: transgression as entry fee, complicity as allegiance token and sunk cost, and dissonance generating ideological internalisation. Paired post-Soviet comparisons illustrate the argument, with implications for authoritarian resilience and Western coalition-fracture strategies.