Titolo completo

A Demand-side Explanation of Offshore Autocratic Assistance: The Case of China and Russia and the Consolidation of Authoritarianism in Venezuela

When do authoritarian incumbents request the assistance of autocratic powers located several thousand kilometres away? What type of assistance do they request? While most of the literature focuses on the supply of assistance by autocratic powers, the framework proposed here puts the incumbents that request assistance at the centre. This is tested by looking at the inter-state relations between Nicolás Maduro’s regime in Venezuela and two offshore autocratic powers: the People’s Republic of China and Russia. We process-trace the different types and intensities of domestic and international threats to the regime's survival, the high-level contacts between the authorities of these regimes and the various types of assistance that Venezuela requested during the period of autocratic consolidation between 2014-23. The proposed demand-side framework is instrumental in understanding offshore autocratic assistance in which the strategic motivations of the autocratic powers for ‘promoting authoritarianism’ are less clear than in the case of autocratic collaboration within a sphere of influence.
Keywords: authoritarian consolidation, regime survival, autocracy promotion, China, Russia, Venezuela