The Politics of Co-optation: Ethnopolitical Minority Organizations and Authoritarian Elections in the Middle East

Co-optation via elections in authoritarian regimes, in which leaders ward off threats to their rule by granting parties electoral access in exchange for their support, is a ubiquitous phenomenon that has received considerable attention from scholars. Two important questions that remain unanswered, however, are who exactly from among the opposition is being co-opted and why do parties accept offers of co-optation? We argue that among ethnopolitical minorities, authoritarian leaders co-opt parties that will acquiesce to their rule in exchange for patronage perks. However, due to limited information, leaders selectively legalize organizations with regime-friendly goals that make them potential candidates for co-optation, and then use elections strategically to allow the most viable candidates to self-select into the electoral process. In turn, this structure of co-optation shapes the electoral incentives of opposition parties. Using data on ethnopolitical minority organizations in authoritarian regimes across the Middle East from 1980–2004, we find support for the argument.