Reducing and channelling discontent: how ruling party institutionalization helps autocracies curb anti-government protest

Many studies have discussed discontent with corruption against authoritarian as well as democratic regimes, but there are few systematic explanations of why corruption breeds more anti-government protest in some autocracies compared to others. Institutionalized ruling parties, I posit, reduce corruption-bred protest via three potential mechanisms: institutionalized parties make government corruption more predictable, thus reducing anti-government grievance; second, these parties distribute the benefits of corruption to a larger group of citizens; and finally, these parties channel citizens' dissent into party-led policy changes. Using global data from 1955 to 2010 and a new measure of authoritarian ruling party institutionalization, this article finds that while corruption increases anti-regime protest in autocracies, ruling party institutionalization mitigates the effect of corruption.