Meritocracy and Autocratic Power-Sharing: A Historical Perspective

This paper proposes meritocracy as a power-sharing institution in authoritarian regimes, particularly in weakly institutionalized environments. Contrary to what Enlightenment scholars believed, our evidence shows that meritocratic institutions were not uncommon in historical states and were often associated with absolute rulers. Using a formal model, we demonstrate that meritocracy benefits rulers by enabling them to co-opt high-ability agents, and it can remain credible even without third-party enforcement mechanisms. Unlike other power-sharing institutions, such as parliaments, which function more effectively under weaker rulers, meritocracy is more likely to emerge endogenously under strong rulers and remains self-reinforcing over time. We test these theoretical predictions using historical case studies and empirical analysis of a panel of 289 historical polities. The results confirm a positive association between meritocracy and autocracy. We believe that meritocracy can fill the gap in the literature to explain power-sharing in many historical absolute regimes.