Personalization and Elite Rhetoric: How the Autocrat's Popularity and Political Repression Influence Policy Speech of Regime Officials
Journal: Politics &amp Policy
Year: 2025

ABSTRACT We study the implications of regime personalization on the incentives of political elites to politicize their policy agenda and express loyalty to the ruler. Because revering the autocrat is one of the observable manifestations of personalization, while the process of personalization may be, in turn, influenced by an increased prevalence of leader‐centered rhetoric, isolating the effects of personalization on policy and political rhetoric is difficult. We distinguish between the negativ