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Analysis of institutional authors

Velasco-Monje, SergioCorresponding Author

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September 8, 2025
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Authoritarian personalism, institutional constraints, and plebiscitary rule

Publicated to: Acta Politica. - 2024-10-23 (), DOI: 10.1057/s41269-024-00367-1

Authors:

Penadés A; Velasco-Monje S
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Affiliations

Univ Salamanca, Dept Sociol & Comunicac, Salamanca, Spain - Author
Univ Valladolid, Fac Ciencias Econ & Empresariales, Ave Valle Esgueva 6, Valladolid 47011, Spain - Author

Abstract

This article explores the phenomenon of plebiscitary rule in authoritarian regimes: the institutionalisation and frequent use of referendums controlled by the executive. This specific trait of dictatorships has not been systematically explored in quantitative comparative politics. Our analysis focusses on the combined effect of autocratic personalism and regime institutionalised pluralism. The puzzle of plebiscitary rule is that it emerges at the intersection of these seemingly contradictory forces. We propose that plebiscitary rule counterbalances obstruction from the legislative and other constitutional actors, contributing to the feasibility of personalist rule in electoral authoritarianism. We provide quantitative evidence based on every post-1945 autocratic regime that is compatible with our expectations.
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Keywords

AuthoritarianismPersonalismPlebiscitesReferendums

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal Acta Politica due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency Scopus (SJR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2024 there are still no calculated indicators, but in 2023, it was in position , thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Political Science and International Relations.

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Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2026-04-05:

  • The use, from an academic perspective evidenced by the Altmetric agency indicator referring to aggregations made by the personal bibliographic manager Mendeley, gives us a total of: 3.
  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 3 (PlumX).

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 4.
  • The number of mentions on the social network X (formerly Twitter): 4 (Altmetric).
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Leadership analysis of institutional authors

There is a significant leadership presence as some of the institution’s authors appear as the first or last signer, detailed as follows: Last Author (VELASCO MONJE, SERGIO).

the author responsible for correspondence tasks has been VELASCO MONJE, SERGIO.

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