The (anti-)political logic of authoritarian institutionalism

Abstract

Abstract This paper develops the concept of authoritarian institutionalism — understood as a combination of authoritarianism as a form of discursive closure and institutionalism as a non-antagonistic construction of social relations following the logic of difference based on Laclau’s theory — which can yield insights from a discursive angle into the workings of “competitive authoritarian” regimes characterized by formally multi-party systems. Based on these considerations, the paper undertakes a periodization of party politics in Russia since 1993, which presents a useful case for probing the boundaries of authoritarian institutionalism given the regime-engineered dynamics of party competition since the days of so-called “managed democracy.” In applying the discourse-theoretical toolkit of difference/equivalence, the analysis identifies two phases of authoritarian consolidation since 2000 that have expanded the authoritarian dimension while curtailing the institutionalist operation of difference in the party system, raising the question of a “GDR-ization” of party politics since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

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