Authoritarian Elasticity: How Autocracies May Effectively Mobilize for Crisis Management

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Wang, Yuge; Han, Rongbin
• 署名单位: University System of Georgia; University of Georgia
• 刊物名称: GOVERNANCE-AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF POLICY ADMINISTRATION AND INSTITUTIONS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0952-1895
• DOI: 10.1111/gove.70074
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: policy implementation; model selection; CHINA; responsiveness; institutions; resilience; disasters; responses; POLITICS; origins

摘要

Current studies on authoritarian resilience have yet to fully explain how autocracies can effectively cope with crises that threaten regime survival. To fill the gap, we introduce the concept of authoritarian elasticity to theorize how an autocracy may dramatically transform, expand, and repurpose its institutions for crisis management, fine-tune its response to crisis development, and scale back mobilization when conditions permit to sustain the crisis management mode for an extended time. We argue, the agile institutional maneuvering capacity, which differs from the long-term institutional adaptability highlighted in the current literature, explains not only how an autocracy can swiftly mobilize its resources during a crisis, but more importantly why such exhaustive mobilization may last longer than one would normally expect. We illustrate our theory empirically by examining how China elastically mobilized its Grid Management System during different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic.