Non-democratic Governments Research Articles

Revisiting Women Empowerment in Modern Era

The growth and development of human societies has been diversely analysed across the globe. The distribution and existence of human races and the progress made thereof has put both the genders on the centre stage, where, on one hand men have been shown responsible for major part of development and on the other women as deprived and neglected. This inequality between men and women is probably a most disturbing aspect of many modern societies, though gender inequity is a global phenomenon yet, it is more prominent in developing countries and countries having non-democratic governments. It is most tragic part of human development that major part of female population of present day civilization is facing persistent hunger and abject poverty simply because of their subjugation, marginalization & systematic disempowerment. But of late it is the result of awakening of women’s consciousness which has led women to re-define their roles from a subordinate, dependent and child bearing traditional women to the modern empowered women.

Framing a welfare reform: the social benefits reform in Russia and Kazakhstan

ABSTRACTThis article addresses the question of why some non-democratic governments are more successful than others at reforming their welfare institutions. Using the example of the Russian and Kazakhstani social benefits reform, the author will illustrate that in modern non-democratic regimes the importance of framing and effective communication with the public for the purpose of effective policymaking and regime legitimization is equal to, if not greater than, in established democracies. The successful implementation of the Kazakhstani social benefits reform, as opposed to Russia’s protracted experience with reforming its social benefits system, was determined not only by the configuration of various institutional and political factors, but also the skilful actions of the Kazakhstani authorities, who used effective communication strategies and framing techniques that resonated with the public and generated broad support for reform. Based on extensive research conducted in Russia and Kazakhstan in 2006–2010 as part of the author's doctoral dissertation at the University of Toronto, this paper enhances our understanding of political and public policy processes in transitional and non-democratic contexts and adds important details to our understanding of how post-Soviet autocrats run their countries and what methods they use to stay in power, manage their state affairs, and avoid public dissatisfaction.

DEMOCRACY OR MILITARY DICTATORSHIP: A CHOICE OF GOVERNANCE FOR THE ECONOMIC GROWTH OF PAKISTAN

Purpose:-This study is conducted to find out whether democratic or nondemocratic governments bring greater economic growth to Pakistan. Methodology:-The data of economic growth from the bureau of statistics is taken for the period 1947(Pakistan’s independence) to 2009 which includes four major democratic and four major autocratic era’s. Findings:-With the help of independent sample t-test it is concluded that growth has been better in the periods of autocratic rule with significant difference in areas such as GDP growth rate, CPI inflation, floating debt and insignificant difference in areas such as exports, Health Expenditure, FDI, and Electricity generation Practical Implications:-The study will help the related departments in forming the effective policies viable for economic growth and development of the country. This study sheds light on the performance of the major types of government systems in terms of economic and social growth.

Can a hypothetical ‘innate proclivity to hierarchically structured political systems’ explain real authoritarian/totalitarian regimes?

The champions of “biopolitics” (a small branch of political science) Albert Somit and Steven Peterson in a series of publications suggested that the persistence of non-democratic regimes in the current political landscape can be explained by the human genetic proclivities towards domination/submission relations and, correspondingly, towards hierarchically structured societies as opposed to egalitarian democratic relations. Somit and Peterson insist that because of this genetic behavioral bias, special enabling conditions are needed in order to make a democratisation project (nation building) successful. I demonstrate that modern totalitarian and authoritarian regimes do not necessarily manifest explicitly hierarchical structures detectable by any “genes” shaped in the Pleistocene. Rather these regimes try to simulate democratic institutions to legitimise their power relations and only rational analytical efforts such as a thorough examination of the public sphere can contribute to the distinction between democratic and non-democratic governments.

Democratic Legitimacy between Port-au-Prince and Cairo: A Reply to Erika de Wet

In the 1990s, international legal scholarship was marked by democratic idealism and the belief that democracy had become the only legitimate political system. The more radical proposals even speculated about legality of pro-democratic intervention. Such re-conceptualizations of international law were met with determined criticism. However, even skeptical voices were willing to admit that democracy nevertheless did have some limited normative force in post-Cold War international law. While it would be an exaggeration to say that nondemocratic governments are illegitimate per se, a consensus started to emerge that international law prohibited at least a coup against a democratic government. In the absence of a workable definition of substantive democracy for international law purposes, a democratic government was understood as an authority which comes to power in an electoral process that is reasonably free and fair.

Analysis of Shale Gas Exploration and Production Regulations - Lessons from Poland, Canada and the US

The aim of this paper is to review the theoretical and practical aspects of regulations concerning the exploitation of natural resources. Raw material policy is a public project, and therefore a decision tool known as Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) should be applied. A nation's ownership of minerals is in practice frequently contested. Non-democratic governments have very often sought to collect revenues from natural resource exports in order to build their private fortunes. Such abuses are observed even today. The article begins with a short theoretical discussion about CBA. It then presents the issue of ownership of natural resources from the perspective of international law as well as the phenomenon of resource nationalism. The following section looks at the policy of granting concessions, a common tool used in regulating access to raw materials for exploration and production (E&P) companies. The empirical part of the paper analyses shale gas regulations in Poland, while also examining both the restrictiveness of rules adopted in this country and the legal preparedness of the Polish authorities to begin to use shale gas on a mass scale. Key findings of this part are enhanced with lessons from shale gas production in the US and Canada.

Transition toward democracy – Georgian problems

The process of democratisation in Georgia has its obstacles, mostly connected with cultural and socio-economic aspects. Political challenges are interlinked with societal attitudes and vice versa. The historical role of the Orthodox Church in preserving Georgian national identity throughout the centuries is over-compensated for, with frequent clerical involvements in public life. Non-democratic governments have made no effort to finalise the process of transition and for two decades the state has remained in the grey zone between consolidation and autocracy. 2012 was marked as a year for the new hopes of Georgian democracy, a new government was elected via free and fair elections, but democracy needs conditions to endure and this paper examines those conditions.

Political Repression and the Struggles for Human Rights in Mexico: 1968–1990s

On the basis of qualitative and quantitative data, I show that nonviolent protests against politically motivated repression in Mexico were more significant, both in terms of their histories and their political impact over time, than the literature suggests. I document that Mexico had human rights movements prior to the late 1980s that have been overlooked because activists since 1968 framed their struggles in terms of amnesty for political prisoners as well as the reappearance of, and accounting for, the disappeared. I further show that their 25-plus years of struggle were effective in the passage of two amnesties for political prisoners (1971 and 1978) as well as the emergence of an ombudsman called the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH circa 1989/1990), along with the negotiated settlement of the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas. This evidence suggests that even against strong odds, and even in the context of ongoing repression, nonviolent social movements of relatively powerless people can independently influence nondemocratic governments not only to pass favorable policy, but also to restructure the polity.

Sovereign wealth funds: the new intersection of money and politics

Sovereign wealth funds are a growing and dynamic force in international finance. The shifting international economic relations from capital rich states gives them new power in influencing the global agenda. Despite controlling trillions of dollars in the biggest companies in the world, little is known about the opaque funds of oil rich and non-democratic governments. This is the first book to compile a history of sovereign wealth funds recounting the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority's involvement with the scandal-plagued BCCI bank and Chinese arms exports to Iran. By constructing a history within the proper context of oil driven surpluses and large inflationary pressures with no international investment framework, this book explains the development and growth of sovereign wealth funds. The economics of capital surplus countries and investment strategies are examined in order to better understand sovereign wealth fund creation and growth. In a straightforward and accessible style, the author examines the complex and amazing growth of an unknown group of investors controlling trillions of dollars worldwide. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/economicsfinance/9780199842902/toc.html

Are dictatorships less redistributive? A comparative analysis of social spending in Europe, 1950–1980

Using new data on Spain and Portugal 1950-1980, this paper shows that non-democratic governments were less generous in providing social protection and also financed their meager social policy in a less redistributive way. This contradicts recent studies that hold that dictatorships have no significant effect on social policy. The analysis also reveals that, rather than provoking a 'race to the bottom' or an increase in social spending, globalization favored the adoption of tax-funded systems instead of systems based on compulsory social security contributions. Copyright , Oxford University Press.

Reducing Energy Subsidies in China, India and Russia: Dilemmas for Decision Makers

This article examines and compares efforts to reduce energy subsidies in China, India and Russia. Despite dissimilarities in forms of governance, these three states have followed surprisingly similar patterns in reducing energy subsidies, characterised by two steps forward, one step back. Non-democratic governments and energy importers might be expected to be more likely to halt subsidies. In fact, the degree of democracy and status as net energy exporters or importers does not seem to significantly affect these countries’ capacity to reduce subsidies, as far as can be judged from the data in this article. Politicians in all three fear that taking unpopular decisions may provoke social unrest.

Regulating Rifles: International Control of the Small Arms Trade

Small arms kill many more people than any other weapon. They are the weapons of choice in the vast majority of contemporary conflicts and are often used in crime and terrorism. In stark contrast to the devastating consequences of small arms proliferation, the international regulatory framework for the trade in small arms, established in 2001, is a weak non-legally binding instrument. To explain this puzzling discrepancy, I develop a theoretical model of government preferences on international regulation. The model offers several innovations over conventional models of trade policy, including the introduction of negative externalities, rather than protection, as the motivation for trade restrictions, and the incorporation of value-based humanitarian concerns. I operationalize the model with respect to small arms and test it empirically through an original survey of national views on the regulation of the small arms trade. The survey - based on interviewing officials from 118 countries - provides strong support for my theoretical predictions. Governments backing small arms exporters, especially those which are state-owned, favor weak international regulation of small arms. Nondemocratic governments, concerned that international controls might impede their access to arms, prefer weak international regulation as well. By contrast, governments facing high rates of gun violence and governments with humanitarian foreign policy concerns support strong regulation. The survey also reveals cross-regional variation. Africa, Latin America, and Europe support the international regulation of small arms; the Middle East as well as East and South Asia are less supportive of regulation. International control of small arms is, in fact, part of a broader phenomenon of international regulation, which the literature has overlooked. Beyond small arms, the theoretical framework developed in the paper can illuminate the political conflict over other internationally regulated goods, such as drugs and antiquities.

Provoking a civil war

Nondemocratic governments under the rule of weak institutions use repression against the opposition to remain in power. Repression both muffles the opposition’s voice and strengthens the government’s supporters. Nevertheless, when repression becomes strong enough, it becomes intolerable to its victims who revolt and initiate a civil war. The government is aware of the mechanism and determines the level of repression accordingly. This paper studies the circumstances in which the ruler’s best alternative is to intensify repression to the point of provoking civil war. Although the model is abstract, its implications are discussed using the recent civil war in the Ivory Coast as a case study.

Elections, Special Interests, and Financial Crisis

A large literature concludes that democracy has ambiguous effects on public policy and that political checks and balances exacerbate crisis. The analysis in this article finds that although democracies are no less likely to experience banking crises, in the event of financial crisis, competitively elected governments intervene more rapidly in insolvent banks and make transfers to them that are between 10 and 20 percent of gross domestic product less than those made by nondemocratic governments. Their countries suffer far smaller growth collapses. However, political checks and balances have no effect on government responses to financial crisis. A simple model offers new explanations for these regime effects. First, for those public policies for which voter information and political credibility are particularly likely to be problematic (financial regulation), electoral accountability matters only when the consequences of failure become large and visible (financial crisis). Second, checks and balances reduce political incentives to seek rents, offsetting the delays they induce in crisis response. The analysis in this article underlines the importance of considering regime effects on political incentives to cater to special interests at the expense of broad social interests, and of avoiding aggregated and subjective measures of democracy that can obscure the identification of regime effects.This article benefited from the generous comments of George Clarke, Robert Cull, and Patrick Honohan, and from those of participants at the 6th International Conference on Finance and Development, Moscow 2005; and in seminars at the University of California, Los Angeles, Universität Basel, and the Inter-American Development Bank.

Does democracy increase crime? The evidence from international data

Empirical evidence for a relationship between democracy and crime has not been investigated. This paper combines several international data sets to show that, compared to non-democratic governments, democratic governments punish major (minor) crime more (less) severely and hence this crime rate is lower (higher). Namely, the effect of democracy on crime is negative for serious crime such as murder and positive for minor crime such as theft. This empirical result is robust across different data sets and estimation methods. A 2SLS method is also used to solve the endogeneity problem embedded in OLS. In addition, GDP has a negative effect on all crime rates. Furthermore, inequality and unemployment increase, while clearance rate decreases, crime. Evidence also suggests that democracy per se rather than transitional or political instability causes the relationship. Using prison sentence length, clearance rates, and prisoners per crime as measures of deterrence, it was found that deterrence can explain approximately 40% of the effect of democracy on crime. Journal of Comparative Economics 35 (3) (2007) 467–483.

Natural resources, aid, and democratization: A best-case scenario

Natural resources and aid give dictators revenue to maintain power. Attempts are being made, therefore, to funnel these resources away from nondemocratic governments and toward their citizens. Using formal analysis and building on existing theories of democratization, I analyze the effects of such institutional solutions when they function perfectly (the best-case scenario). The models show that even with institutional safeguards, these resources diminish chances for democratization. In addition to their practical importance, the results have an important theoretical implication: the political resource curse may not be due to dictators' use of these resources, but simply to their existence in nondemocracies.

By Popular Demand: The Effect of Public Opinion on Income Inequality

AbstractThis paper examines the relationship between public support for wage differentials and actual income inequality using data from the World Values Surveys. The distribution of income is more equal in nations where public opinion is more egalitarian. There is some evidence that the opinions of people with higher incomes are more influential than those of people with low incomes. Although the estimated relationship is stronger in democracies, it is present even under non-democratic governments, and the hypothesis that effects are equal cannot be rejected. We consider the possibility of reciprocal causation by means of an instrumental variables analysis, which yields no evidence that income distribution affects opinion.

Traffic-related injury prevention interventions for low-income countries

Traffic-related injuries have become a major public health concern worldwide. However, unlike developed or highincome countries (HICs), many developing or low-income countries (LICs) have made very little progress towards addressing this problem. Lack of the progress in LICs is attributable, in part, to their economic situation in terms of their governments’ lack of resources to invest in traffic safety, cultural beliefs regarding the fatalism of injuries, competing health problems particularly with the emergence of HIV/AIDS, distinctive traffic mixes comprising a substantial number of vulnerable road users for whom less research has been done, low literacy rates precluding motorists to read and understand road signs, and peculiar political situations occasionally predominated by dictatorship and non-democratic governments. How then can LICs tackle the challenge of traffic safety from the experiences of HICs without reinventing the wheel? This paper reviews selected interventions and strategies that have been developed to counter trafficrelated injuries in HICs in terms of their effectiveness and their applicability to LICs. Proven and promising interventions or strategies such as seat belt and helmet use, legislation and enforcement of seat belt use, sidewalks, roadway barriers, selected traffic-calming designs (e.g., speed ramps/bumps), pedestrian crossing signs combined with clearly marked crosswalks, and public education and behavior modification targeted at motorists are all feasible and useable in LICs as evidenced by data from many LICs. While numerous traffic-related injury policy interventions and strategies developed largely in HICs are potentially transferable to LICs, it is important to consider country-specific factors such as costs, feasibility, sustainability, and barriers, all of which must be factored into the assessment of effectiveness in specific LIC settings. Almost all interventions and strategies that have been proven effective in HICs will need to be evaluated in LICs and particular attention paid to the effectiveness of enforcement measures. It behooves LIC governments, however, to ensure that only standard, approved safety devices like helmets are imported into their countries. Additionally, LICs may need to improvise and innovate in the traffic safety technology transfer.

Keeping Out the Internet? Non-Democratic Legitimacy and Access to the Web

Non-democratic and democratic regimes alike have been attracted to the promise of the global information superhighway. However, the Internet contains a number of features which are potentially damaging to the legitimacy of incumbent non-democratic governments. The scope and ease of obtaining information on the World Wide Web provides the means for undermining one of the central pillars of non-democratic rule: centralized control over the domestic distribution of information and ideas. Furthermore, the communication capabilities available to Internet users assists in the creation of autonomous "public spaces" which can threaten the political preeminence of non-democratic authorities. Unfortunately for skittish regimes, designing solutions to the make cyberspace "safe" for public use in order to preempt internal challenges to state authorities are hampered by the fact that the features which cause problems for non-democratic rulers are the same attributes which make the technology so attractive. I will examine several countries' history with the Internet, with particular attention paid to China, to illustrate the attractions of the Internet and the lengths to which officials have gone to make this technology politically reliable.

After the Fall: Attitudes Towards Jews in Post-1989 Poland

The Enlightenment instilled European and European-rooted societies with certain fundamental principles which are generally taken for granted; among the most important are democracy, education, and human equality. Not all of mankind experienced this period of cultural history, but in those areas that the Enlightenment touched, a tautology functions in the collective subconscious that where there is democracy and where there is an educated people, there will be equality. Western nations—their politicians, scholars, and common folk alike—believe that a preordained consequence of the system of democratic rule in a developed country is open-mindedness and tolerance; in contrast, it is generally maintained that non-democratic governments where knowledge is evidently censored and controlled, such as those of the former Soviet Bloc, produce narrow-mindedness and intolerance.