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<p>This article examines how authoritarian regimes legitimize major constitutional reforms and whether their justificatory language exhibits cross-national discursive isomorphism. It employs a mixed-methods design that pairs a cross-national institutional baseline with episode-centered discourse analysis. First, using V-Dem data (1989–2020) for closed and electoral autocracies, I estimate two-way fixed-effects models to situate reform episodes within broader institutional trajectories. The quantitative baseline is descriptive rather than causal and indicates substantial heterogeneity: on average, reform episodes are not uniformly associated with institutional backsliding and may coincide with modest openings. Second, I analyze reform-era texts in five authoritarian episodes (Iran 1989; Venezuela 1999; Hungary 2011; Turkey 2017; Russia 2020) and a matched set in three liberal democracies (Switzerland 1999; Finland 2000; France 2008). For each case, seven documents (elite speeches, constitutional texts, and official explanatory narratives) are coded in NVivo using an identical frame scheme. Relative to the controls, authoritarian cases place greater emphasis on national sovereignty, people-centeredness, saving-the-country crisis narratives, and stability; democratization language appears in both sets, while reform/modernization frames are more prominent in the controls. These comparisons distinguish regime-linked legitimation logics from broader reform rhetoric, while remaining agnostic about diffusion pathways (learning, parallel development, or field-level pressures).</p>

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The language of power: discursive isomorphism among authoritarian regimes in justifying constitutional reforms (1989–2020)

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年6月17日

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  • Seyed Masoud Azarfam

摘要

This article examines how authoritarian regimes legitimize major constitutional reforms and whether their justificatory language exhibits cross-national discursive isomorphism. It employs a mixed-methods design that pairs a cross-national institutional baseline with episode-centered discourse analysis. First, using V-Dem data (1989–2020) for closed and electoral autocracies, I estimate two-way fixed-effects models to situate reform episodes within broader institutional trajectories. The quantitative baseline is descriptive rather than causal and indicates substantial heterogeneity: on average, reform episodes are not uniformly associated with institutional backsliding and may coincide with modest openings. Second, I analyze reform-era texts in five authoritarian episodes (Iran 1989; Venezuela 1999; Hungary 2011; Turkey 2017; Russia 2020) and a matched set in three liberal democracies (Switzerland 1999; Finland 2000; France 2008). For each case, seven documents (elite speeches, constitutional texts, and official explanatory narratives) are coded in NVivo using an identical frame scheme. Relative to the controls, authoritarian cases place greater emphasis on national sovereignty, people-centeredness, saving-the-country crisis narratives, and stability; democratization language appears in both sets, while reform/modernization frames are more prominent in the controls. These comparisons distinguish regime-linked legitimation logics from broader reform rhetoric, while remaining agnostic about diffusion pathways (learning, parallel development, or field-level pressures).