Autocratic Elites and American Television
American audiences are increasingly finding the conflict within autocratic power structures to be entertaining drama. Two of the most popular shows dominating American airwaves and conversation revolve around how autocratic elites manage their empires. HBO’s House of the Dragon and Disney’s Andor both portray autocratic systems under stress and under threat as the show’s central conflict. However, there are noted differences in how they approach portraying this conflict. While there has been a lot of valuable analysis on how individual characters or events have impacted the conflicts inherent to these shows, this paper will attempt to use the existing academic literature around autocratic elites to help explain how the events in the show unfolded the way that they did.
House of the Dragon
HBO’s House of the Dragon is a sequel to its wildly popular fantasy epic Game of Thrones, and is itself based on George RR Martin’s Fire and Blood. The first season of the show focuses on a slow-moving succession crisis within the dominant ruling Targaryen dynasty of Westeros, that culminates in the outbreak of a large civil war following the death of the incumbent King Viserys. While on paper the show and its dragons, magic, and Iron Throne make a poor venue for serious analysis, a closer inspection reveals it as an interesting case study to examine how autocratic elites govern themselves and how failures can lead to internal conflict.
It’s important to begin with an analytical framework that explains how autocrats hold on to power, and why elites colace behind an autocrat, whether that be a monarch, dictator, or warlord. In their book “The Dictator's Handbook,” Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith (both of NYU) proposed that autocracies revolve around a small inner circle of elites, known as “Keys.” In a modern dictatorship these may include the heads of the military, police, and intelligence services, as well as regional governors and the ministers for key institutions like the treasury. The goal of any autocrat is to manage their limited resources (including coercivity and inducements) to convince a majority of those “keys'' that the autocrat is the best option for managing those resources and mediating the different needs each “key” has. One way to minimize the work required to placate these allies is to minimize the number of allies that need to be supported. Of course, this risks introducing uncertainty and alienating key supporters, so it is only done when the autocrat is confident in their position. Importantly, this system isn’t exclusive to the ruling autocrat. Every member of the ruling elite has their own “keys.” The commander of the armed forces relies on the support of his generals, who in turn relies on their colonels, all the way down to the individual foot soldiers. In that way, an autocracy resembles a pyramid, where each level on the pyramid has to secure the support of the lower rung for its own survival.
Importantly, de Mesquita and Smith argue this system applies to all political regimes, but with autocracies the number of “keys” is reduced to the point where the leader can individually manage each key. In Saudi Arabia, for example, they argue that there is “a tiny nominal and real selectorate, made up of the royal family and a few crucial merchants and religious leaders.” Ensuring that these key figures remain placated is key to Saudi regime survival. When Mohammed bin Salman took power in 2017 for example, he did it on the pack of several of these key members. Once he took power, he then tried to minimize the number of supporters he needed via a large purge.
The Kim dynasty in North Korea is also another successful (as in long lasting) example of how to manage this pyramid. Political power is highly centralized into a few key family members, generals, and businessmen. The regime, to ensure the loyalty of these key supporters, in turn allocates the vast majority of its tax revenue to the military, and to businesses run by key supporters. North Korean leaders use their strong levels of control to frequently purge key supporters who are deemed unnecessary (especially after a leadership change to another member of the family).
And, while the likelihood of this depends on the strength of the regime, these key supporters have the ability to remove the autocrat. In 2002, Chinese premier Jiang Zemin tried to convince his keys in the party Politburo to back him for another term. However, the key supporters in the Politburo felt that Jiang’s economic policies would threaten their own bases of support, and then backed Hu Jintao as leader instead.
This pyramid model, where each level supports, coups, and purges each other to various degrees, breaks down when the keys have access to dragons. The dragons of Westeros are a military advantage without parallel in the fictional world they inhabit, a weapon of mass destruction, and Westerosi military planners will treat an individual dragon as a similar or larger threat than an army of tens of thousands. This breaks the pyramid. If the commander of an autocratic military in our world wants to rebel against his autocrat, he needs to convince hundreds of lower keys to join his rebellion. If Aemond Targaryen, the second son of King Viserys, wants to rebel he only needs to convince a single key, his dragon Vhaegar.
While dragons lower the threshold for rebellion, they are the core of Targaryen power. The Targaryen dynasty is best understood through the framework of a foreign colonial power. The Targaryens aren’t from Westeros, instead they are from the now-destroyed Valyria. They practice a different religion and have separate cultural traditions than their subjects, and rely on overwhelmingly superior military technology (in the form of their dragons) to maintain their control over their keys.
An advantage of overwhelming military force is that the Targaryen dynasty had some ability to reshape the constituency of their key constituents. Westeros is dominated by seven great houses, who serve as regional leaders. This is augmented by several national level-keys, including the king's family members and representatives of national level institutions. During his initial conquest of Westeros, theTargaryens used their military advantage (and the complete destruction of several great houses) to replace several great houses with one's perceived as more loyal.
In this way the Targaryen model of governance mirrored the empire building projects of France and Britain in Africa during the 19th century. They co-opted existing traditional leadership and appointed their own leaders from the local elite if the existing ones were perceived as insufficiently loyal.This ensured that the “keys” they relied on for power were loyal to them. They also implemented several other policies that mirrored the actions of other colonial elites in our world. Nearly fifty years after the Conquest, when the Targeryan leadership felt their rule had been sufficiently stabilized, they invested in a highly-expensive series of highways across their holdings. Importantly, all of these highways (with one exception) terminated in the newly established capital, Kings Landing. This mirrors several European infrastructure projects in Sub-Saharan Africa during the 19th century, such as the British-made Uganda Railway that linked Uganda with the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa. These infrastructure projects were aimed at linking the resources in the periphery that Imperial elites valued with the Imperial core. These roads linked Westeroses key cities and production centers (such as gold mines) with the capital, but crucially not with each other.
Of the replaced houses, House Tyrell is of particular note here. The kingdom of the Reach is generally considered the most important constituent kingdoms. It has the largest population, largest economy, and the largest city (Oldtown). There are several notable and famous houses from the Reach, any of whom would be strong leadership candidates. Instead, the Targaryens opted to appoint House Tyrell as their successors, who at the time were described as “mere stewards.” This ensured that House Tyrell remained loyal, but at the price of excluding several key constituents from power. Most notably House Hightower, who were lords of Westeros’s largest city and had deep ties to both the national religious and educational organizations.
The political order was relatively rigid and centralized. It lacked the ability to accommodate major stakeholders that had been excluded from the current arrangement (such as the Hightowers). It also lacked the ability to accommodate the rise in power of previously insignificant subjects. House Velaryon was, at the start of Targaryen rule, a relatively minor town known for their merchant fleets. By the time of House of the Dragon their lord, Corlys Velaryon, had embarked on several trade voyages to distant lands that made House Velaryon the richest in the realm. He raised a new castle, High Tide, and married into the Targaryens. However, House Velaryon's position as a minor house remained static, and the political order wasn’t able to adapt to their new-found wealth. It’s no coincidence that the two most powerful houses left out of the existing power structure (Velaryon and Hightower) were also the main backers for each of the two factions during the Dance during House of the Dragon.
Perhaps part of this static order relates to the source of their power: dragons. It is generally accepted by the Targaryens (though unproven) that only those of Targaryen blood are capable of riding dragons. Besides, the Targaryen keep a monopoly on the dragon eggs and thus adult dragons. Inter-marrying with other houses means that there are more dragon-riders in Westeros, more outside House Targaryen, and a loss of the Targaryen monopoly on dragons that underpins their rule. However, inter-marriage is also how the Westerosi political order adjusts to different power dynamics by reinforcing alliances, strengthening ties, and concluding peace agreements. This dilemma, and the failure of successive Targaryen rulers to navigate it, was the root cause of the Dance.
There were also several other factors that, while not a core driver of the conflict, were escalating factors that led to the disputed violent outcome. First, there was no clear succession law and no laws or norms that protected potential rival claimants from harm, even if they never planned to press that claim. That factor led to both potential claimants to the throne taking the view that, if they did not press their claim, they would be killed by the other along with their family. While neither side actually wanted to do this, the lack of norms and laws to prevent such behavior led to miscalculation that escalated the conflict. “You win or you die” is a catchy slogan, but a poor norm in an autocratic system.
It’s also important to note how the Targaryen dynasty functioned after they lost their dragons. Once the dragons died out following the Dance, there was a marked and notable increase in instability within the kingdom. There were a series of Blackfyre rebellions, as well as many revolts by regional lords that eventually culminated in Roberts’ Rebellion, which overthrew the dynasty. In summary, the Targaryen dynasty were able to use their significant military advantage as a way to cover up the deep inefficiencies within their own governing system, which led to said system collapsing after they lost that military advantage.
Andor
The world of “Star Wars,” where Disney+’s new show “Andor '' is set, is on the surface level radically different from Westeros. Instead of a rural peasantry ruled from large castles, the citizens of “Star Wars'' live in a deeply interconnected and networked galaxy. Instead of a military dominant but feudal Targaryen dynasty, the galaxy is ruled by a Galactic Empire that, while ever present, lacks the technological dominance that the Targaryen’s had with their dragons. Despite these surface level differences, however, these two governing regimes operated under similar governing principles.
“Andor '' represents a deeper dive into the actual minutiae of how the Galactic Empire functioned compared to other movies and TV shows in the setting, which took a grander perspective. This deep dive lets us explore how the Empire governed its various territories, and the results are fascinating. While the Empire is known for its overwhelming displays of power: thousands of TIE fighters, hundreds of towering Star Destroyers, and the terrifying Death Star, they actually relied on local partners for day-to-day governance. On the planets of Ferix and Morlana One, for example, governance was handled by the Preox-Morlana Corporation. Security personnel from that corporation, rather than the ubiquitous Stormtroopers, handled security in the area. These sort of partnerships appear to be common throughout the galaxy, with hundreds of separate vassel governments represented in the Imperial Senate. In addition, direct imperial power was also decentralized. Regional rulers, known as Moffs, had a large amount of local autonomy. In that way the Galactic Empire has similarities with the feudal Westeros governance system, but through a system of power divestment that is less apparent on first dance.
However, the Galactic Empire is also far more bureaucratic than the aristocratic Westerosi state. Bureaucratic autocracies have several key differences from more personalistic autocratic structures. As Kent Weaver of Georgetown argues, bureaucratic politics is structured around blame avoidance. Individual bureaucrats don’t want to be punished or reprimanded for failure, so they take steps to limit their personal risk in the event of failure. This is especially true in autocratic regimes, where the risks of failure extend beyond simply losing one's job (this applies triply so in the Empire, where force-choking failed administrators appears to have been common practice).
One key way to mitigate personal risk is by outsourcing to contractors. This gives bureaucrats a convenient scapegoat if things go wrong and ensures they only have to carry out limited oversight functions. As Don Moynihan of Georgetown notes, Imperial bureaucrats embraced contractors like this in the form of security forces like the Preox-Morlana Corporation. They ensured that, when there was an incident on one of their worlds, they were there to take the blame instead of Imperial bureaucrats. This is similar to how large-scale military bureaucracies have functioned, even in established democracies. The United States, for example, have relied on a armada of military contractors to fight the War on Terror in the form of trainers, logistics support, and even armed personnel. These forces are able to do the same tasks as the conventional military, but with greater cover for the military if there are any errors or issues involving the contractors.
The Galactic Empire also has a large standing army, unlike the Targaryen dynasty. This means that we see a principle of autocratic rule: coup-proofing. Caitlin Talmadge of Georgetown argues that, in authoritarian states where there are no clear external threats, ruling elites will implement “coup-proofing” measures that limit the military's ability to seize power in a coup. This is because, in the absence of an external threat, a strong well-organized military is a danger rather than a benefit to the current authoritarian elite due to the prevalence of military coups. Common coup-proofing practices include promoting based on loyalty rather than merit, limiting joint training exercises, overly-centralized command structures, and a lack of information sharing. Coup-proofing measures decrease that military's total effectiveness, at both being an internal threat and preventing external threat.
A real world case that Talmadge uses to examine these ideas is North and South Vietnam during the Vietnamese civil war. Both North and South Vietnam were autocratic regimes, and both countries were very similar in terms of population, economy, and ethnic make up. Despite this, North Vietnam’s military was highly effective compared to their South Vietnamese counterparts, and they were ultimately able to earn a military victory despite the large-scale assistance that South Vietnam received from the United States. Talmadge argues that this difference in effectiveness was driven by the differing threats that South Vietnamese and North Vietnamese leadership faced. South Vietnam had a series of successful and attempted military coups before and during the conflict, while North Vietnam never faced an internal challenge from the military. This led to South Vietnamese autocrats to impose coup-proofing measures on their own military, despite the external threat from the North. South Vietnamese commanders were appointed based on perceived loyalty rather than ability, command and control was centralized, and cross-training and information-sharing was limited. This had a negative impact on battlefield effectiveness. At the Battle of Ap Bac, for example, the South Vietnamese military lost a battle where they held a 4:1 military advantage in part because the force lacked a cohesive command and control structure. These measures led to a series of military defeats and their eventual defeat in the conflict.
At the time of “Andor '' the Empire was at the height of its power, and the nascent rebellion was the only small external threat. Thus, we see several key coup-proofing measures in place. In the Empire's ISB intelligence agency, for example, information was kept divided. Every senior official was assigned a certain geographic region, and intelligence was not shared between sectors. At the same time, ISB command was centralized, where every senior and mid-level official reported directly to the head of the agency, who then in turn reported directly to the Emperor. Loyalty to the ruling regime was also viewed as valuable.
The fledgling rebellion was able to take advantage of this. They exploited the incompetence of local non-imperial security forces and spread their operations across multiple sectors which prevented the ISB, with their lack of information sharing, from properly tracking rebel activity. When the Empire became aware of the scale of the Rebellion, however, they quickly realized the external threat was more dangerous than the internal threat, and begane to adapt. They started to encourage greater information sharing, subsumed several poorly-performing vessels, and tightened security measures. This demonstrates that the Imperial ruling elite were reactive.
Conclusion
American television audiences have been increasingly drawn to the internal workings of fictional autocracies as a form of entertaining drama. While many audiences focus on the soap opera-like conflicts between individual characters based on their own needs, values, and desires, the structural factors that underpin these personal conflicts are equally interesting to study. While there are plenty of additional lenses that academia can use to analyze these systems, this paper introduced a few of them.
These series have drawn mass market appeal, and that’s important for a few reasons. First, it offers an avenue for academic engagement. Many of the academic theories presented in this article have been confined to academia, but using these fictional cases as an avenue to present existing and new ideas on how autocracies function to the public could further the broader public's understanding of how real-world autocracies function, leading to a better informed electorate.
Second, perhaps audience fixation on elite politics betrays something about our society's values. As Autocratic parties and policies are on the rise both domestically and abroad, it's possible that audiences want to find some sort of catharsis by watching these autocratic systems, initially viewed as unstoppable within their own worlds, topple either due to internal pressure (House of the Dragon) or external revolt (Andor), and in doing so reminds the audiences of the inherently transient nature of autocratic regimes.
