It’s the state, indeed! How state capacity facilitates social equality in authoritarian regimes

Abstract

ABSTRACT Empirical evidence suggests that contemporary authoritarian regimes face several incentives to redistribute social policy concessions to their citizens. Yet autocracies differ extensively in their capacity to implement policy decisions. In this article, we identify three distinct but interrelated mechanisms through which state capacity determines a more equal provision of social benefits and services in healthcare and education sectors. Administrative capacity allows the regime to manage the implementation of social policy, extractive capacity ties in with more resources and information to be used for the provision of social benefits and services, and coercive capacity permits the state to effectively enforce policies. Using static and dynamic regression models for over 120 countries from 1960 to 2016, our findings show that state capacity enhances social equality in authoritarian contexts through these three interrelated mechanisms. Further analysis though suggests that the overall effect of state capacity dissipates in the long run.