Why dictators decarcerate

Gavin Slade, Umidjon Toshimov and Alexei Trochev

Chapter 20 in Research Handbook on Penal Policy, 2026, pp 386-404 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: The former Soviet Union was the site of the biggest reduction in prison rates in the world between 2000 and 2020. In that same period, countries that came to be classified as consolidated authoritarian regimes were among the biggest decarcerators. Chapter 20 takes three such cases – Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Russia prior to 2022. Utilizing an agonist approach, we argue that all-powerful presidential administrations must buy into decarceration as a political project, and we ask which political actors were able to influence presidents in this direction. Analyzing the cases, we find that dictators decarcerate when they are convinced it will create a legitimacy windfall for them among international audiences, particularly scandal-sensitive foreign investors and human rights–promoting states, where dictators often launder ill-gotten gains. However, decarceration is only possible if it does not risk the loyalty of the security services or produce any obstacle to targeted political repression. In conclusion, we offer Turkmenistan and Russia post-2022 as examples where these conditions did not hold, and we do not expect decarceration to occur.

Keywords: Authoritarianism; Decarceration; Agonist theory; Legitimation; Central Asia; Russia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035308521
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