Democracy Scores Research Articles

Right-wing populism in Turkey and the 2023 elections

ABSTRACT This article examines right-wing populism in the May 2023 elections of Turkey, mainly focussing on the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi-AKP). Using the ideational approach of populism, I first briefly examine the AKP’s predecessors, the Democratic Party (Demokrat Parti-DP) and the National Outlook (Milli Görüş) movement, which exploited the divide between secular elites and devout Muslims, based on a cultural conflict between two contrasting visions of a good society rooted in secularism and Islam. The AKP carries three characteristics of populism: people-centrism, anti-elitism, and a Manichean outlook, widely applied in the party’s discourse during recent elections. This study illustrates the fact that populism in Turkey damages the democratic game, where opponents are seen as legitimate rivals, as evidenced in the country’s democracy scores. Also, right-wing populism during the 2023 elections depicted the opposition as illegitimate enemies, both non-native and non-national, illustrating the moralistic imagination of politics.

The Strategic Use of Narratives and Governance of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Major Autocratisers in Europe

ABSTRACT By the end of 2022, scholars had published heavily on authoritarian consolidation at the time of COVID-19 and explored how governments adopted measures weakening democratic checks and balances yet strengthened their regimes during the COVID crisis. Yet, we do not know much about how political leaders narrated the pandemic in their domestic and foreign policy choices in a way that reinforces their power. By focusing on the major autocratisers in Europe (Hungary, Poland, Turkey, and Serbia) whose democracy scores have fallen the most over the last 10 years, we reveal a set of influential narratives identified in the discourses of state leaders and government representatives which were constructed around the governance of the COVID-19 pandemic. These narratives were utilized by political leaders to legitimize their repressive policies geared towards controlling the society, and to contest the European Union (EU) in particular and the liberal democratic order in general.

Democratic Continuity or Regression?

Abstract This article deals with the level of democracy in Croatia after EU accession. The first part presents key events, processes, and actors which have shaped the trajectory of democratic development. The second part discusses the Croatian case in the context of current research on democratic backsliding. The third part tests the idea about democratic backsliding in Croatia by running regression models with democracy indices derived from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) dataset. The findings challenge the idea of democratic backsliding in Croatia. The models do not show a clear association of decreased democracy scores after EU accession but point to a stronger role of the pre-accession period in increasing levels of democracy in Croatia. The models also highlight the explanatory role of executive and public sector corruption regarding democracy levels in Croatia. Instead of speaking of democratic backsliding, the Croatian case can be better described as one experiencing democratic stagnation.

The consequences of CIA-sponsored regime change in Latin America

The CIA intervened regularly in Latin America politics during the Cold War, in some cases going as far as bringing about regime change. We study the economic, political, and civil society effects of CIA-sponsored regime change in five Latin American countries and find that these actions caused moderate declines in real per-capita income and large declines in democracy scores, rule of law, freedom of speech, and civil liberties. Our findings show that any benefits to come out of these interventions should be weighed against the large costs that were imposed on the people living in these countries.

Individualism, economic development, and democracy as determinants of COVID-19 risk information on 132 government websites

Little is known about how governments transparently communicate about COVID-19. This study conducted a content analysis of 132 government COVID-19 websites to identify the salience of health messages (i.e., perceived threat, perceived efficacy, and perceived resilience) and cross-national determinants of information provision. Multinomial logistic regression was used to estimate the relationship between country-level predictors (i.e., economic development, democracy scores, and individualism index) and information salience. The numbers of deaths, discharged patients, and daily new cases were prevalent on the main webpages. Subpages provided information about vulnerability statistics, government responses, and vaccination rates. Less than 10% of governments included messages that may instill self-efficacy. Democratic countries had higher chances of providing threat statistics on subpages, including daily new cases (Relative Risk Ratio, RRR = 1.66, 95% CI: 1.16–2.37), mortalities (RRR = 1.69, 95% CI: 1.23–2.33), hospitalizations (RRR = 1.63, 95% CI: 1.12–2.37), and positivity rates (RRR = 1.55, 95% CI: 1.07–2.23). On subpages, democratic governments emphasized information about perceived vulnerability (RRR = 2.36, 95% CI: 1.50–3.73), perceived response efficacy (RRR = 1.48, 95% CI: 1.06–2.06), recovery numbers (RRR = 1.84, 95% CI: 1.31–2.60), and vaccinations (RRR = 2.14, 95% CI: 1.39–3.30). Developed countries reported the number of daily new cases, perceived response efficacy, and vaccination rates on their COVID-19 main pages. Individualism scores predicted the salience of vaccination rates on main pages and the omission of information related to perceived severity and perceived vulnerability. Democracy levels were more predictive of reporting information about perceived severity, perceived response efficacy, and perceived resilience on subpages of dedicated websites. Improving public health agencies’ communication about COVID-19 is warranted.

Public governance versus corporate governance: Evidence from oil drilling in forests

Petroleum companies look for oil and gas in some of the most remote and biodiverse forested areas on the planet. To study how local environmental footprints vary across countries and companies, we combine global company-level geo-coded data on oil drilling with high resolution data on forest loss. We find that oil wells drilled in countries with better public governance, measured by democracy scores, are associated with substantially lower forest loss in the period after drilling. In contrast, we do not find evidence of less forest clearance among companies with presumptively ‘better’ corporate governance practices, such as major international companies, publicly listed companies, or members of an industry association committed to high environmental standards. These results do not support a “pollution halo” effect, whereby companies might bring better environmental practices with them, exceeding domestic environmental standards.

The winner takes all the trust: populism, democracy, and winner-loser gaps in political trust in Central and Southern Europe

ABSTRACT Studies typically find that supporters of populist parties exhibit low political trust. Drawing on research on winner-loser gaps in political support and the consequences of political polarization on attitudes, I re-examine the association between populism and political trust taking into account the supported party’s status in or outside of government, distinguishing between government leaders and junior coalition partners. I analyze data from the European Social Survey Rounds 1–9 from nine Central and Southern European countries that experienced populist parties as government leaders, combined with party characteristics from the Varieties of Party Identity and Organization as well as democracy scores from the Varieties of Democracy datasets. Results show that the effect of party status on political trust is stronger among supporters of populist than non-populist parties. Further, I find that supporters of populist governments enjoy greater trust advantages in less democratic contexts.

The democratic (dis)advantage: The conditional impact of democracy on credit risk and sovereign default

AbstractMany have argued that democracies are able to make credible commitments to repay their debts and consequently enjoy higher sovereign credit ratings. In contrast to this expectation, I argue that the advantage of democracies in credit ratings is conditional on the countries' level of financial vulnerability and adjustment needs. Because democracies have more diffuse decision‐making and are more accountable to the public, they encounter greater difficulty than autocracies in passing unpopular economic adjustment measures. Thus, I argue that democracies with high debt levels and low foreign reserve assets experience worse credit outcomes, whereas democracies with low vulnerability experience more positive outcomes. In a sample of up to 96 developing countries, I show that democracies have worse credit ratings and CDS Spreads and are more likely to default than their autocratic counterparts when foreign reserves are low relative to external debt. Notably, I also show that large debt burdens increase credit risk mainly in more democratic countries. I further test the causal pathway of the democratic advantage by constructing democracy scores of “market‐friendly” and “adjustment‐difficulty” democracy, finding that democracy worsens debt outcomes due to adjustment difficulty. These findings help to revise and clarify the causal logic surrounding the democratic advantage hypothesis.

Kin Networks and Institutional Development

AbstractThis study provides evidence that strong kin networks are detrimental for democratic participatory institutions and that the medieval Catholic Church's marriage regulations dissolved Europe's clan-based kin networks, which contributed to the emergence of participatory institutions. I show that weak ancestral kin networks are positively associated with ethnicities’ democratic traditions in the past and countries’ democracy scores today. At the same time, medieval Church exposure predicts weak kin networks across countries, European regions and ethnicities. In a historical difference-in-difference analysis, I provide evidence that exposure to the Church contributed to the formation of medieval communes—self-governed cities with participatory institutions. Moreover, within Christian Europe, stricter regional and temporal marriage prohibitions are associated with commune formation. Lastly, I shed light on one mechanism, civicness, and show that weak kin networks are associated with more political participation.

Does Trust Associate with Political Regime?

Since trust correlates with economic development and in turn economic development associates with political regime, we conjecture that there may be a relationship between trust and political regime. Without looking for any casual inference, we investigate if trust aggregated on the country level correlates with the country's political regime. Specifically, we are interested whether trust correlates positively with the level of democracy in cross-sectional observations. We analyse data on trust from 76 countries using the Global Preference Survey and investigate the correlations with five separate democracy indices (Polity2, Economist Intelligence Unit’s Index of Democracy, Freedom House, MaxRange and Unified Democracy Score). We do not find any significant association, with or without taking into account other factors (e.g., regional location, economic development, geographic conditions, culture) as well. Trust does not correlate with cornerstones of democracy either, measured by five components of the EIU index. A robustness check using an alternative measure of trust from the World Values Survey reaches the same results. The present study supersedes the working paper version (Khayouti et al., 2020).

How democratic is government really? The impact of subnational regime variation on evaluations of democracy

AbstractDemocracy is not an exclusively national concept, and subnational governments vary in respect for democratic norms and institutions. In subnational authoritarian enclaves, incumbents manipulate elections using fraud, corruption, institutional manipulation, or repression to maintain power. While we know a fair amount about how these authoritarian enclaves form and democratize, we know much less about how they affect the people that live in them. Does subnational democracy influence evaluations of democratic performance? I argue that individuals incorporate subnational outcomes into overall evaluations of democracy, and that subnational democracy positively influences these evaluations. To test this argument, I combine a new measure of subnational democracy, the Subnational Electoral Democracy Scale, with the fifth and sixth waves of the World Values Survey. I find that people living in states with high electoral democracy scores are likely to believe that elections are not manipulated, human rights are protected, and that their country is democratic.

Maneuvering without offending on the road to democracy: the role of leaders' power in bringing greater freedom to all

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to expand understanding of how leaders can use their power to reshape macro-level structures to foster individuals' freedoms and build more democratic workplaces. The importance of freedom in work and life can hardly be argued with, yet current democracy scores are the lowest that have ever been recorded (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2019).Design/methodology/approachThe authors analyzed two cases of successful democratization, Spain and Lithuania, where they conducted a total of 65 semi-structured interviews with different actors including the top leaders themselves. A combined inductive-deductive analysis of the in-depth qualitative data highlighted how using different dimensions of power (French and Raven, 1959) related to distributing power to others.FindingsThese findings extend understanding of how leaders can use their power to effectively distribute power to others and reach a democracy that fosters freedom. Information and referent power were crucial for aligning the different stakeholder groups, expert power emerged as key for building and empowering a network of support and legitimate power was essential for fostering peaceful and long-lasting changes toward democracy.Originality/valueWhile previous research has recognized the importance of leadership and politics for instigating macro-level changes, this study specifies how leaders can utilize their different sources of power to bring greater power and freedom to individuals by unpacking the unique impacts of each type of power. This study thus provides practical insights for leaders seeking to establish more democratic workplaces.

What explains governments interest in artificial intelligence? A signaling theory approach

Since 2015, several countries have shown significant interest in artificial intelligence (AI) and have released national-level AI strategic plans. These plans reflect the country’s rationale for embarking on AI. To identify what factors influence the AI approach of a country, this study employs the signaling theory to decode strategic national AI plans and understand each country’s rationale. The study adapts the typology of signals and plots AI information given in national AI plans (AI-enabled public services, research, data, algorithmic ethics, governance) in a matrix of intentionality and veracity considering socio-economic and political conditions. Our findings indicate that countries with high democracy scores are more likely than less democratic countries to prioritize ethical and governance issues of AI, however, this is more pronounced in democratic countries with a lower technology base. The results also suggest that advanced research capability and data accessibility for AI is a precondition to developing a nationwide AI system.

Closing the void in energy planning modeling: Integrating local realities

Closing the void in energy planning modeling: Integrating local realities

Democracy, governance, and road safety

Countries scoring high on the Democracy Index developed by The Economist Intelligence Unit have fewer traffic fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants than countries scoring low on this index. The statistical relationship between democracy score and fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants is statistically highly significant and robust with respect to control for potentially confounding factors. A similar relationship exists between democracy score and the number of traffic fatalities per 100,000 motor vehicles. The statistical relationship between level of democracy and level of road safety is strong, although the analyses reported in this paper do not justify a causal interpretation of the relationship. Changes over time in government effectiveness (one of the indicators of the World Governance Index developed by the World Bank) are weakly associated with changes in road safety performance.

Success of economic sanctions threats: coercion, information and commitment

ABSTRACT This study examines when and why threats of economic sanctions lead to the successful extraction of policy concessions. Scholars identified three (not mutually exclusive) hypotheses that explain the success of sanction threats: (a) the coercive, (b) the informational and (c) the public commitment hypothesis. The underpinning mechanisms for the hypotheses are, respectively, the economic cost of sanctions, uncertainty about the resolve of the sender and domestic audience cost for issuing empty threats. In this study, we offer an empirical test of the three hypotheses on threats effectiveness. In addition, we assess how variation in the three mechanisms affects the effectiveness of threats relative to imposed sanctions. For the expected economic cost, we use the TIES data. To measure uncertainty, we generate a network of diplomatic relations, based on Formal Alliance data, utilizing methods from complex network theory. To assess public commitment, we use the democracy score based on the POLITY IV data. Our results show that the effectiveness of threats strongly increases in an economic cost to the target; however, threats become increasingly effective relative to imposed sanctions for lower uncertainty and higher domestic audience cost.

Introduction: (De)democratisation in Slovenia and Montenegro: Comparing the Quality of Democracy

Abstract This paper creates a framework for the comparison of two similar and yet different democratisation cases – Slovenia and Montenegro. The two countries have obvious similarities: their geography and small population, as well as their common socialist Yugoslav heritage and common aspirations to join international organisations, most importantly the European Union. However, while Slovenia went through the democratisation process rather smoothly, Montenegro took the longer road, struggling for more than a decade to regain its independence and complete its transition. We take into account different internal and external factors in these two cases such as the year of independence and of joining NATO, the political and electoral system, ethnic homogeneity, the viability of civil society, EU integration status, economic development and the presence of war in each territory in order to identify and describe those factors that contributed to the success of democratisation in different areas: the party system, the interest groups system, the defence system, Europeanisation and social policy. We find that the democratisation process in these countries produced different results in terms of quality. Various objective measures of the quality of democracy score Slovenia higher compared to Montenegro, while public opinion data shows, in general, greater satisfaction with the political system and greater trust in political institutions in Montenegro than in Slovenia.

Political and Economic Consequences of Humanitarian Military Interventions in Targeted Nations

This study investigates the impact of humanitarian military interventions (HMIs) on conflict termination, conflict escalation, economic output and democratic performance using panel data on 144 countries covering time-period of 1960-2018. There is no scholarly consensus about whether HMIs are an effective mean of enforcing peace and causing economic and political stabilities. Our contribution is empirical and we use recently developed database on HMIs by the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt. The results from multivariate analyses suggest that neutral interventions have positive impact on conflict termination whereas biased interventions, particularly against rebels, tend to escalate conflict. Neutral interventions have no significant negative impact on output whereas HMIs biased against governments and rebels lead to around 9 -8 percent decrease in per capita output. Finally, neutral and against governments HMIs lead to increase in democracy score. We estimate both contemporaneous and long-run decaying effects and as robustness check also carry out IV regressions with instruments constructed using Lewbel method.

FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

What are the economic, political, institutional, socio-cultural, and geographical determinants of financial development in developing countries? This paper uses the two-way fixed effects (with clustered standard errors) and annual panel data from 1980 to 2018 for 69 developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East and North Africa, East and South Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean to address this question. The principal component analysis is employed to construct a financial development index based on three financial development indicators. This study builds on the previous studies by introducing new potential determinants of financial development such as the perception of corruption, and by exploring important quadratic and interaction effects. The results show that national income, trade openness, indices of political stability and Polity2 (a democracy score), perception of corruption, the predominant religion in the countries, and geographical factors such as territorial access to the sea explain the differences in the levels of financial development across countries and regions. A rise in national income leads to a higher level of financial development and countries with a high perceived level of corruption have a lower level of financial development. There is strong evidence of threshold effects as trade openness has a diminishing marginal effect on financial development while the auxiliary growth regressions show that financial development has an increasing marginal effect on national income. Of the five regions studied, East and South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa have the highest and lowest levels of financial development, respectively. Also, fuel-exporting countries, least developed countries, and landlocked countries tend to have lower levels of financial development. These results have relevant policy implications for developing countries in their continued efforts to achieve better financial development and ultimately, sustainable economic development.

Amplifying and nullifying the impact of democratic sanctions through aid to civil society

ABSTRACT Both foreign aid and sanctions are foreign policy tools to promote democracy. Yet, it is unclear how far incentives and coercion enhance democratization. Since sanctions and aid are often employed at the same time, the goal of this study is to determine their joint effect on democratization in target/recipient countries. We argue that sending democracy aid through civil society organizations enhances the effectiveness of sanctions as a democracy promotion tool because the civil society is empowered to introduce democratic changes. Thus, in addition to the top-down pressure on the target government created by sanctions, there is a bottom-up pressure exerted by the civil society. Our empirical results show that democratic sanctions by the European Union and the United States are more likely to have a positive effect when aid flows bypass the government. Conversely, aid channeled through the public sector mitigates the generally positive effect of sanctions on democracy. In order to estimate these joint effects, we employ a new comprehensive dataset on economic sanctions: the EUSANCT Dataset which integrates and updates existing databases on sanctions for the period between 1989 and 2015, merged with disaggregated OECD aid data and V-Dem democracy scores.