Alexander Baturo
Biographic Data
| ID | 4097957 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alexander Baturo |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alexander |
| FAMILY NAME | Baturo |
| SIGNATURE | BATURO A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Dublin City University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 175 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Autocrats and Ideological Imperative: Russia’s Anti-Nazi Campaign in International Organizations
While scholarship exists on the contestation of liberal norms, the conditions under which autocrats gain global support for their own normative campaigns remain less understood. This paper proposes that dictatorships can gain normative standing in international organizations (IOs) by repurposing existing consensus, thereby making opposition more difficult. Alongside seeking majority support, autocrats also aim to isolate and force liberal actors …
“Everything for the Front, Everything for Victory”? Elite Incentives and Rhetorical Adaptation of Russia’s Members of Parliament on Social Media
How do authoritarian regimes that rely on the disengagement of their citizens adapt to the demands of a major international conflict, particularly in political communication? Instead of risking potential destabilization by exclusively turning to mobilizing messages, we propose that a more dynamic rhetorical adaptation will follow, with a mixture of mobilizing, legitimating, and co-opting messages in the state media and – hitherto underexplored su…
High-Level Leader Visits: A Promising Area of Study in IR
Once deemed a “nearly impossible” area of study, high-level leader visits—one of the most visible and consequential practices in global politics—have recently attracted renewed scholarly attention. This resurgence stems from the growing recognition of leader visits as a valuable lens for addressing foundational questions in international relations, including why states act as they do, the consequences of their actions, and how their behavior shap…
Playing the sycophant card: The logic and consequences of professing loyalty to the autocrat
Despite the centrality of the loyalty–competence framework in research on authoritarian politics, scholars have only focused on material aspects of what elites do in their service to the dictator. Yet nonmaterial aspects such as sycophantically praising the autocrat in speech—a common, everyday practice under authoritarianism, have been ignored. We propose a novel theory to explain under what conditions elites “overpraise” the ruler and imitate h…
Strategic Communication in Dictatorships: Performance, Patriotism, and Intimidation
Research shows that dictators’ public rhetoric shapes both elite and mass opinion and behavior. However, the determinants of dictators’ strategic communication remain undertheorized and underresearched. Theoretically, we argue that (i) dictators primarily use three key communication strategies (“performance” and “patriotism,” which serve to boost legitimacy, and “intimidation,” meant to deter opponents); (ii) they substitute between them dependin…
Leaders’ experience and the transition from populism to dictatorship
Incumbent takeovers
The expansion of power by incumbent political leaders has become the subject of increased scholarly attention. In democracies, this is known as 'subversions by the ruling executive', 'executive aggrandizement', or 'autogolpe'; in autocracies, researchers study 'personalization', 'transition to personal rulership', or 'power-grabbing'. While the terminological landscape is rich, there is little conceptual agreement of what leader-driven power expa…
When incumbents do not run: Presidential Succession and Democratization
When authoritarian incumbent presidents run in elections, they have significant incumbency advantage and almost always win. When incumbents comply with term limits or do not run for other reasons, they tend to designate successors in their stead. However, their chosen successors often lose. Do they lose because they cannot command the same electoral advantage in loyalty, resources and name recognition that incumbents can, or because succession an…
The Politics of Presidential Term Limits
Presidential term limits are one of the most important institutions in presidentialism. They are at the center of contemporary and historical debates and political battles between incumbent presidents seeking additional terms and their political opponents warning against democratic backsliding and the dangers of personalism. Bringing the team of country experts, comparativists, theorists, constitutional lawyers, and policy practitioners together,…
Politics of Presidential Term Limits
When Do Family Ties Matter? The Duration of Female Suffrage and Women’s Path to High Political Office
While the percentage of female heads of state in the world has increased to around 10 percent in the 2010s, a female president or prime minister still remains an exception. Recent scholarship has proposed a number of explanations behind this phenomenon, but there exist important gaps. The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, we use new and comprehensive data to undertake a systematic examination of the differences in the personal, educ…
Is there a ‘revolving door’ to the private sector in Irish politics
The connections between Irish politicians and the private sector are the subject of constant speculation, particularly in the post Celtic Tiger period. However, there is little systematic evidence whether publicised cases of such ties represent the exception to the rule, or if they are symptomatic of a larger problem. In this paper we focus on one aspect of the public–private nexus and investigate whether a revolving door – the movement of indivi…
Democracy, Development, and Career Trajectories of Former Political Leaders
One of the obstacles to democratic development is the reluctance of political leaders to leave office. This article argues that alongside democratic constraints and accountability, leaders’ career concern—specifically, the possibility of post-tenure careers—is an important factor behind their rotation in office. While literature exists about leaders’ exit and fate, we lack a systematic understanding of their careers and whether former rulers reti…
Blair disease? Business careers of the former democratic heads of state and government
Dynamics of regime personalization and patron–client networks in Russia, 1999–2014
Many comparative scholars classify personalist regimes as a distinct category of nondemocratic rule. To measure the process of regime personalization, and to distinguish such a process from overall authoritarian reversal, is difficult in comparative context. Using the Russian political regime in 1999–2014 as a case study, we examine the dynamics of regime personalization over time. Relying on original data on patron–client networks and expert sur…
Democracy, Dictatorship, and Term Limits
A national constitution or other statute typically specifies restrictions on executive power, often including a limit to the number of terms the chief executive may hold office. In recent decades, however, some presidents of newly established democracies have extended their tenure by various semilegal means, thereby raising the specter—and in some cases creating the reality—of dictatorship. Alexander Baturo tracks adherence to and defiance of pre…
Office or Officeholder? Regime Deinstitutionalization and Sources of Individual Political Influence
How to separate the office from the officeholder is one of the most difficult questions in the empirical study of institutions and leadership. We argue that provided there is an indicator for the overall individual influence among members of the political elite and there is sufficient variability among individuals taking the same office, being promoted and demoted into different offices over time, we can separate latent individual and institution…
Life of Brian Revisited: Assessing Informational and Non-Informational Leadership Tools
Recent literature models leadership as a process of communication in which leaders’ rhetorical signals facilitate followers’ co-ordination. While some studies have explored the effects of leadership in experimental settings, there remains a lack of empirical research on the effectiveness of informational tools in real political environments. Using quantitative text analysis of federal and sub-national legislative addresses in Russia, this article…
The Stakes of Losing Office, Term Limits and Democracy
Some presidents facing term limits attempt – often successfully – to scrap tenure restrictions, while others step down when constitutionally required. Whether democratic, partly democratic or non-democratic, there is considerable variation among electoral regimes as to whether presidents respect term limits. This article focuses on what is at stake for a president required to leave the highest political office. It argues that for a given level of…
Flatliners: Ideology and rational learning in the adoption of the flat tax
What factors explain the wave of adoption of the flat tax in Eastern Europe? It is argued in this article that, once the first few successes were underway, governments with liberal outlooks toward taxation adopted the reform through a process of rational learning: an often radically new government will tend to adopt the policy based on successful implementation of its neighbours. The issue of policy diffusion is approached by explicitly modeling …
Dynamics of regime personalization and patron–client networks in Russia, 1999–2014
Many comparative scholars classify personalist regimes as a distinct category of nondemocratic rule. To measure the process of regime personalization, and to distinguish such a process from overall authoritarian reversal, is difficult in comparative context. Using the Russian political regime in 1999–2014 as a case study, we examine the dynamics of regime personalization over time. Relying on original data on patron–client networks and expert sur…
The Stakes of Losing Office, Term Limits and Democracy
Some presidents facing term limits attempt – often successfully – to scrap tenure restrictions, while others step down when constitutionally required. Whether democratic, partly democratic or non-democratic, there is considerable variation among electoral regimes as to whether presidents respect term limits. This article focuses on what is at stake for a president required to leave the highest political office. It argues that for a given level of…
Democracy, Development, and Career Trajectories of Former Political Leaders
One of the obstacles to democratic development is the reluctance of political leaders to leave office. This article argues that alongside democratic constraints and accountability, leaders’ career concern—specifically, the possibility of post-tenure careers—is an important factor behind their rotation in office. While literature exists about leaders’ exit and fate, we lack a systematic understanding of their careers and whether former rulers reti…
When Do Family Ties Matter? The Duration of Female Suffrage and Women’s Path to High Political Office
While the percentage of female heads of state in the world has increased to around 10 percent in the 2010s, a female president or prime minister still remains an exception. Recent scholarship has proposed a number of explanations behind this phenomenon, but there exist important gaps. The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, we use new and comprehensive data to undertake a systematic examination of the differences in the personal, educ…
Office or Officeholder? Regime Deinstitutionalization and Sources of Individual Political Influence
How to separate the office from the officeholder is one of the most difficult questions in the empirical study of institutions and leadership. We argue that provided there is an indicator for the overall individual influence among members of the political elite and there is sufficient variability among individuals taking the same office, being promoted and demoted into different offices over time, we can separate latent individual and institution…
Strategic Communication in Dictatorships: Performance, Patriotism, and Intimidation
Research shows that dictators’ public rhetoric shapes both elite and mass opinion and behavior. However, the determinants of dictators’ strategic communication remain undertheorized and underresearched. Theoretically, we argue that (i) dictators primarily use three key communication strategies (“performance” and “patriotism,” which serve to boost legitimacy, and “intimidation,” meant to deter opponents); (ii) they substitute between them dependin…
Flatliners: Ideology and rational learning in the adoption of the flat tax
What factors explain the wave of adoption of the flat tax in Eastern Europe? It is argued in this article that, once the first few successes were underway, governments with liberal outlooks toward taxation adopted the reform through a process of rational learning: an often radically new government will tend to adopt the policy based on successful implementation of its neighbours. The issue of policy diffusion is approached by explicitly modeling …
Life of Brian Revisited: Assessing Informational and Non-Informational Leadership Tools
Recent literature models leadership as a process of communication in which leaders’ rhetorical signals facilitate followers’ co-ordination. While some studies have explored the effects of leadership in experimental settings, there remains a lack of empirical research on the effectiveness of informational tools in real political environments. Using quantitative text analysis of federal and sub-national legislative addresses in Russia, this article…
Is there a ‘revolving door’ to the private sector in Irish politics
The connections between Irish politicians and the private sector are the subject of constant speculation, particularly in the post Celtic Tiger period. However, there is little systematic evidence whether publicised cases of such ties represent the exception to the rule, or if they are symptomatic of a larger problem. In this paper we focus on one aspect of the public–private nexus and investigate whether a revolving door – the movement of indivi…
Blair disease? Business careers of the former democratic heads of state and government
Incumbent takeovers
The expansion of power by incumbent political leaders has become the subject of increased scholarly attention. In democracies, this is known as 'subversions by the ruling executive', 'executive aggrandizement', or 'autogolpe'; in autocracies, researchers study 'personalization', 'transition to personal rulership', or 'power-grabbing'. While the terminological landscape is rich, there is little conceptual agreement of what leader-driven power expa…
When incumbents do not run: Presidential Succession and Democratization
When authoritarian incumbent presidents run in elections, they have significant incumbency advantage and almost always win. When incumbents comply with term limits or do not run for other reasons, they tend to designate successors in their stead. However, their chosen successors often lose. Do they lose because they cannot command the same electoral advantage in loyalty, resources and name recognition that incumbents can, or because succession an…
Playing the sycophant card: The logic and consequences of professing loyalty to the autocrat
Despite the centrality of the loyalty–competence framework in research on authoritarian politics, scholars have only focused on material aspects of what elites do in their service to the dictator. Yet nonmaterial aspects such as sycophantically praising the autocrat in speech—a common, everyday practice under authoritarianism, have been ignored. We propose a novel theory to explain under what conditions elites “overpraise” the ruler and imitate h…
Leaders’ experience and the transition from populism to dictatorship
High-Level Leader Visits: A Promising Area of Study in IR
Once deemed a “nearly impossible” area of study, high-level leader visits—one of the most visible and consequential practices in global politics—have recently attracted renewed scholarly attention. This resurgence stems from the growing recognition of leader visits as a valuable lens for addressing foundational questions in international relations, including why states act as they do, the consequences of their actions, and how their behavior shap…
Flatliners: Ideology and rational learning in the adoption of the flat tax
What factors explain the wave of adoption of the flat tax in Eastern Europe? It is argued in this article that, once the first few successes were underway, governments with liberal outlooks toward taxation adopted the reform through a process of rational learning: an often radically new government will tend to adopt the policy based on successful implementation of its neighbours. The issue of policy diffusion is approached by explicitly modeling …
The Stakes of Losing Office, Term Limits and Democracy
Some presidents facing term limits attempt – often successfully – to scrap tenure restrictions, while others step down when constitutionally required. Whether democratic, partly democratic or non-democratic, there is considerable variation among electoral regimes as to whether presidents respect term limits. This article focuses on what is at stake for a president required to leave the highest political office. It argues that for a given level of…
Life of Brian Revisited: Assessing Informational and Non-Informational Leadership Tools
Recent literature models leadership as a process of communication in which leaders’ rhetorical signals facilitate followers’ co-ordination. While some studies have explored the effects of leadership in experimental settings, there remains a lack of empirical research on the effectiveness of informational tools in real political environments. Using quantitative text analysis of federal and sub-national legislative addresses in Russia, this article…
Democracy, Dictatorship, and Term Limits
A national constitution or other statute typically specifies restrictions on executive power, often including a limit to the number of terms the chief executive may hold office. In recent decades, however, some presidents of newly established democracies have extended their tenure by various semilegal means, thereby raising the specter—and in some cases creating the reality—of dictatorship. Alexander Baturo tracks adherence to and defiance of pre…
Office or Officeholder? Regime Deinstitutionalization and Sources of Individual Political Influence
How to separate the office from the officeholder is one of the most difficult questions in the empirical study of institutions and leadership. We argue that provided there is an indicator for the overall individual influence among members of the political elite and there is sufficient variability among individuals taking the same office, being promoted and demoted into different offices over time, we can separate latent individual and institution…
Blair disease? Business careers of the former democratic heads of state and government
Dynamics of regime personalization and patron–client networks in Russia, 1999–2014
Many comparative scholars classify personalist regimes as a distinct category of nondemocratic rule. To measure the process of regime personalization, and to distinguish such a process from overall authoritarian reversal, is difficult in comparative context. Using the Russian political regime in 1999–2014 as a case study, we examine the dynamics of regime personalization over time. Relying on original data on patron–client networks and expert sur…
Democracy, Development, and Career Trajectories of Former Political Leaders
One of the obstacles to democratic development is the reluctance of political leaders to leave office. This article argues that alongside democratic constraints and accountability, leaders’ career concern—specifically, the possibility of post-tenure careers—is an important factor behind their rotation in office. While literature exists about leaders’ exit and fate, we lack a systematic understanding of their careers and whether former rulers reti…
When Do Family Ties Matter? The Duration of Female Suffrage and Women’s Path to High Political Office
While the percentage of female heads of state in the world has increased to around 10 percent in the 2010s, a female president or prime minister still remains an exception. Recent scholarship has proposed a number of explanations behind this phenomenon, but there exist important gaps. The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, we use new and comprehensive data to undertake a systematic examination of the differences in the personal, educ…
Is there a ‘revolving door’ to the private sector in Irish politics
The connections between Irish politicians and the private sector are the subject of constant speculation, particularly in the post Celtic Tiger period. However, there is little systematic evidence whether publicised cases of such ties represent the exception to the rule, or if they are symptomatic of a larger problem. In this paper we focus on one aspect of the public–private nexus and investigate whether a revolving door – the movement of indivi…
The Politics of Presidential Term Limits
Presidential term limits are one of the most important institutions in presidentialism. They are at the center of contemporary and historical debates and political battles between incumbent presidents seeking additional terms and their political opponents warning against democratic backsliding and the dangers of personalism. Bringing the team of country experts, comparativists, theorists, constitutional lawyers, and policy practitioners together,…
Politics of Presidential Term Limits
When incumbents do not run: Presidential Succession and Democratization
When authoritarian incumbent presidents run in elections, they have significant incumbency advantage and almost always win. When incumbents comply with term limits or do not run for other reasons, they tend to designate successors in their stead. However, their chosen successors often lose. Do they lose because they cannot command the same electoral advantage in loyalty, resources and name recognition that incumbents can, or because succession an…
Incumbent takeovers
The expansion of power by incumbent political leaders has become the subject of increased scholarly attention. In democracies, this is known as 'subversions by the ruling executive', 'executive aggrandizement', or 'autogolpe'; in autocracies, researchers study 'personalization', 'transition to personal rulership', or 'power-grabbing'. While the terminological landscape is rich, there is little conceptual agreement of what leader-driven power expa…
Strategic Communication in Dictatorships: Performance, Patriotism, and Intimidation
Research shows that dictators’ public rhetoric shapes both elite and mass opinion and behavior. However, the determinants of dictators’ strategic communication remain undertheorized and underresearched. Theoretically, we argue that (i) dictators primarily use three key communication strategies (“performance” and “patriotism,” which serve to boost legitimacy, and “intimidation,” meant to deter opponents); (ii) they substitute between them dependin…
Leaders’ experience and the transition from populism to dictatorship
High-Level Leader Visits: A Promising Area of Study in IR
Once deemed a “nearly impossible” area of study, high-level leader visits—one of the most visible and consequential practices in global politics—have recently attracted renewed scholarly attention. This resurgence stems from the growing recognition of leader visits as a valuable lens for addressing foundational questions in international relations, including why states act as they do, the consequences of their actions, and how their behavior shap…
Playing the sycophant card: The logic and consequences of professing loyalty to the autocrat
Despite the centrality of the loyalty–competence framework in research on authoritarian politics, scholars have only focused on material aspects of what elites do in their service to the dictator. Yet nonmaterial aspects such as sycophantically praising the autocrat in speech—a common, everyday practice under authoritarianism, have been ignored. We propose a novel theory to explain under what conditions elites “overpraise” the ruler and imitate h…
Autocrats and Ideological Imperative: Russia’s Anti-Nazi Campaign in International Organizations
While scholarship exists on the contestation of liberal norms, the conditions under which autocrats gain global support for their own normative campaigns remain less understood. This paper proposes that dictatorships can gain normative standing in international organizations (IOs) by repurposing existing consensus, thereby making opposition more difficult. Alongside seeking majority support, autocrats also aim to isolate and force liberal actors …
“Everything for the Front, Everything for Victory”? Elite Incentives and Rhetorical Adaptation of Russia’s Members of Parliament on Social Media
How do authoritarian regimes that rely on the disengagement of their citizens adapt to the demands of a major international conflict, particularly in political communication? Instead of risking potential destabilization by exclusively turning to mobilizing messages, we propose that a more dynamic rhetorical adaptation will follow, with a mixture of mobilizing, legitimating, and co-opting messages in the state media and – hitherto underexplored su…
Political science (17 works) · Law (15 works) · Politics (15 works) · Law (11 works) · Democracy (10 works) · Economics (10 works) · Political economy (10 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (9 works) · Political Conflict and Governance (9 works) · Sociology (8 works)