Political Obligation in Electoral Autocracies

It is widely thought that citizens in legitimate states have political obligations such that the directives of the state create normally decisive reasons for them to act as directed, just because they were so directed. Many philosophers also believe that democratic procedures are crucial in justifying this feature of political obligation, because democracy realizes a central aspect of social status equality. This chapter explores the implications of this view for electoral autocracies that employ somewhat competitive but nondemocratic elections to sustain themselves. The chapter argues that electoral autocracies are normatively distinctive because, due to their reliance on pluralistic yet undemocratic elections and permanent mobilization, they enlist the active support of some social groups to sustain their rule and subordinate other social groups, thus creating objectionable social status hierarchy. Therefore, citizens in such regimes have no content-independent obligations to obey and have reasons to resist the wrong of status hierarchy. It is further argued that since some social groups’ active support is enlisted by the autocracy to sustain itself, its members make themselves liable to some defensive harm. Therefore, they are not wronged if successful democratic challengers who assume power transgress formal procedural rules in order to restore or establish democracy.