Poor Democracies Research Articles

The politics of COVID-19: Government response in comparative perspective

Since its appearance in Wuhan (China) in late December 2019, the geographical spread of COVID-19 and its constituent waves varied in pace and intensity around the world. Responses to the pandemic also varied across the world with high variation in case rates, death rates, and estimated excess mortality rates. This article addresses the political factors that may have shaped this variation. We test the proposition that the observed variation in case rates, death rates, and estimated excess mortality can be partly explained by differences across levels of democracy and autocracy, while controlling for additional possible confounding factors using a cross-section time-series data set for 155 countries between January 2020 and December 2021. The analysis begins with a theoretical consideration of the different ways in which democratic and authoritarian governments can respond to national emergencies such as a global pandemic and the expected effect of regime features on that response. For reported case rates and death rates, our analysis shows that democracies have a far worse record of pandemic response and control than autocracies. For estimated excess mortality rates and the ratio of these rates to reported death rates, however, our analysis shows that variation is more tightly captured by clusters of poor democracies and poor autocracies in particular geographies in the world. The difference in results for recorded COVID data and estimated excess mortality suggest that transparency in reporting within democracies may explain an otherwise spurious relationship between regime type and COVID response. Our findings suggest that future pandemics and other public health threats require much better coordination, control, and transparent reporting protocols that are less encumbered by politics than has been observable during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Term Limits and Environmental Treaty Commitments

Abstract How does political accountability in democracies affect leaders’ incentives for international cooperation? We consider how term limits should affect international environmental agreement (IEA) participation. Pursuing environmental protection as a public good coincides with the political survival incentives of democratic leaders. Term limits decouple leaders’ policy priorities from their political survival incentives, discouraging IEA participation. However, prioritization of environmental concerns increases with economic development. As such, the effect of term limits on IEA participation should be strongest in rich democracies. We test these arguments using data from the International Environmental Agreements Database from 1970 to 2011. Democratic leaders, particularly in rich democracies, sign fewer IEAs when freed from the reelection motive. We also consider the potential that term limits could favor IEA participation if doing so aligns with a leader's preferences. This potential should be greatest in poor democracies where citizens place less emphasis on environmental protection, though we find little evidence for this expectation. The findings have important implications for understanding the determinants of IEA participation and the political accountability–international cooperation relationship. Whereas some argue that electoral incentives that cause leaders to favor present over future concerns undermine environmental cooperation, our results suggest that political accountability in democracies can promote treaty participation.

An assessment of democratic vulnerability: regime type, economic development, and coups d’état

ABSTRACTPrior research has not established a clear relationship between democracy and insulation from coups d’état, with very few studies illustrating robust findings on the subject. I contend that the lack of attention paid to the conditional influences of democracy on coups has resulted in these mixed findings. I posit that insulation from coups occurs at higher levels of economic development in both autocracies and democracies. However, the vulnerability present at low levels of economic development is significantly greater in democracies. Poor democracies lack the coercive capacity associated with authoritarian states, suffer from relatively weaker patronage networks, and have smaller pots for public goods provision, all making them less capable of maintaining elite loyalty. An assessment of 165 states for the years 1950–2011 offers strong support for the argument. Democracies are indeed an important part of the coup story, but only when simultaneously addressing their level of economic development.

Democracy and taxation

Abstract In this paper, the author argues that democracies increase tax revenues, based on the hypothesis that democracies increase direct and indirect taxes due to increased taxpayers’ compliance, diffusion of taxes between democracies and because voters in poor democracies are in favour of import taxes. The author tests this hypothesis using data on 74 countries from 1993 to 2012. His explanatory variable is a dichotomous democracy measure, but he alters his analysis from previous research by assuming that democracy is not an exogenous variable. Instead, he uses the theory of Huntington (The third wave: Democratization in the late twentieth century, 1991) and the methodology of Acemoglu et al. (Democracy does cause growth, 2014) about democratization waves. According to this theory, democratizations occur in regional waves; consequently, diffusion of demand for or discontent with a political system is easier to happen in neighbouring countries due to economic, political and historical similarities. This measure shows us that demand for or discontent with a given political system in a geographical area, influences a country’s political system and its tax choices. Using a 2SLS fixed effects model the author finds that democratization waves positively affect democracy, and in turn democracy increases direct and indirect taxes. These results remain the same using several robustness tests.

A call for comparative thinking: Crime, citizenship and security in the global South

This article argues for the importance of an international comparative perspective in terms of our analysis and response to violent crime. This is particularly important in the light of the fact that while an increasing number of countries in the global Southhave achieved formal democracy, they continue to be plagued by high levels of violent crime. In fact, transitions from authoritarian to democratic governance around the world, from Eastern Europe to Latin America and Africa, have been accompanied by escalating violent crime rates. In this context, we have much to learn from an international comparative approach in terms of understanding why democratic transitions are so often accompanied by increases in violence, what the impact of this violence is on the ability of these societies to deepen democracy, and what the most appropriate interventions are in relatively new and often resource poor democracies.

Trade liberalization and the challenges of revenue mobilization: can international financial institutions make a difference?

ABSTRACTDeveloping countries are being confronted with severe fiscal challenges in the global economy. Over the last two decades, governments have been accepting significant reductions in trade taxes to support trade liberalization. This is particularly problematic for developing economies because trade taxes have been a key source of government revenues. In this paper, we investigate the conditions under which international financial institutions (IFIs) successfully assist developing countries with recovering the lost revenue from trade liberalization by implementing various domestic tax reforms. We argue that regime type mediates the effectiveness of IFI assistance in developing economies, after trade reforms have been adopted. More specifically, IFIs will be more effective at assisting authoritarian regimes with domestic tax reforms as a substitute for trade taxes than they will be in poor democracies. Democratically elected leaders inadvertently undermine multilateral assistance with tax reforms because they are more susceptible to middle- and upper-class demands for lower taxes in a competitive global economy. In authoritarian regimes, on the other hand, IFIs such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund tend to be more effective because dictators are likely to experience far fewer political consequences for accepting IFI assistance and implementing tax reform in the global economy than their democratic counterparts.

Buying votes versus supplying public services: Political incentives to under-invest in pro-poor policies

This paper provides evidence that vote buying in poor democracies is associated with lower investments in broadly delivered public services that have been shown to disproportionately benefit the poor. Using detailed data around the local institutional context in the Philippines, the paper shows how the correlation can be interpreted as arising in equilibrium under conditions of clientelism, when political strategies emphasize the provision of targeted benefits in exchange for political support. In places where households report more vote buying, government records show that municipalities invest less in basic health services for mothers and children; and, a higher percentage of children are recorded as severely under-weight. Corroborating evidence is provided using Afrobarometer surveys across 33 countries. Taken together, the evidence shows that where politicians purchase political support through targeted transfers, they are likely to trade it off against the provision of broader public services on which poor people rely.

Democracy and Multilateralism: The Case of Vote Buying in the UN General Assembly

AbstractDemocracies are more supportive of US positions on important votes in the UN General Assembly than of nondemocracies. Is this because democracies share common perspectives, or does this pattern reflect coercion? Since 1985, US law has stipulated that the US State Department identify important votes and that aid disbursements reflect voting decisions. To unravel these alternative explanations, we introduce a strategic statistical model that allows us to estimate voting preferences, vulnerability to influence, and credibility of linkage, which are theoretical quantities of interest that are not directly observable. The results reject the hypothesis of shared democratic values: poor democracies have voting preferences that are more oppositional to US positions than autocracies, and they are more willing than autocracies to take symbolic stands that may cost them foreign aid. Democracies support US positions, however, because US aid linkages are more credible when directed toward democratic countries. Splitting the sample into Cold War and post–Cold War segments, we find that the end of the Cold War changed the way US linkage strategies treated allies and left- and right-leaning governments, but the effects of democracy remained constant.

Terrorism and Democracy

From 1968 to 1997, wealthy, advanced democracies generally did not suffer from high levels of chronic terrorism, with two exceptions: (a) advanced democracies that interfered in other countries' affairs through military intervention or occupations were frequent targets of transnational terrorism, and (b) poor democracies with territorial conflicts often experienced related domestic terrorist attacks. Intermediately wealthy and transitioning democracies with internally inconsistent institutions were more likely to experience domestic terrorism than advanced democracies and authoritarian regimes. There is very little agreement about why these trends persist. I identify the competing explanations that have emerged within the literature as well as remaining controversies. I also present preliminary evidence suggesting that since 9/11, terrorism persists in the usual pattern but may be increasingly prevalent in nondemocratic countries. I offer five speculative explanations for this and four suggestions for how the field should proceed.

Perspectivas de la integración político-económica continental : la integración de las democracias pobres : oportunidades y peligros

This paper highlights three events that have marked Latin America in recent times: the end of the Cold War, the end of the principle of continental security as the axis of United States policies towards the region, and the emergence of poor democracies. This new reality constitutes the basis for analyzing integration processes, ties with the world, and relations between the United States and Latin America. If in the eighties the Latin American nations were disconnected from each other, gradually the new democracies moved towards integration. When analyzing the relations between Latin America and Europe, the need to follow the European example, where economic measures are guaranteed by political agreements, is noticed. To implement the proposals of a large continental market, the consensus of Latin American societies must be counted on, and economic measures must be legitimized by them.

Does Democracy Check Corruption? Insights from China and India

Democracy is widely expected to restrain corruption.1 Democratic institutions and pol itics make it more likely that corruption will be discovered and publicized, allow cit izens and political oppositions to make an issue of corruption, and facilitate recourse ranging from public hearings to voting the scoundrels out. Other claimed advantages of democracy include horizontal accountability via independent judiciaries and various checks and balances; a free press; social attitudes and sanctions, the latter often imple mented through private associations, supporting legal rules; and widespread commit ment to the rule of law.2 Indeed, global corruption rankings show a visible, if imperfect, tendency for democracies to cluster at the less corrupt end of the rankings while un democratic societies dominate the other extreme. But to the extent that such rankings make sense?a debatable matter?is it really democracy that accounts for the differences? Democracy is not only institutions and practices but also an outcome, reflecting deeper influences that also shape corruption; to analyze societies in terms of whatever democratic aspects they seem to lack might be to miss forces that actually are at work. Do comparisons confound democracy with affluence, strong civil societies, and other developments? If so, poor democracies might have few advantages, and specific points of vulnerability, in dealing with corruption.3 One test of such propositions is to examine a poor democracy's corruption prob lems. The case in question should be well established, with democratic institutions that have had time to work their effects,4 and should be compared with one or more un democratic states of similar social scale. We should consider not only the overall gravity of corruption but also differences in kind. Economic underdevelopment should be ex amined not just as a contextual factor, but rather in terms of opportunities and institu tions that influence corruption and democracy alike.5 This article compares two challenging but appropriate cases: India, a large but poor democracy, and China, a large undemocratic state. The similarities between the two coun tries include their vast populations and territories and undeniable political, economic, and cultural importance; severe principal-agent problems arising from their size; particular istic cultures that can buttress nepotism and personalism; the legacies of centralized economies; and now economic liberalization and rapid growth. Both economic centrali zation and overall levels of development affect corruption in complex and reciprocal 1

Capitalism, Democracy and the War in Iraq

Although Saddam Hussein was a bloody tyrant, and although deposing him served a noble purpose, one still may doubt the wisdom of the American war against Iraq. It is quite dubious whether the democratisation of Iraq can serve as a justification of the American war effort. Properly understood, the democratic peace proposition does not promise that poor, emerging, and illiberal democracies surrounded by autocracies are more peaceful than autocracies. By itself, the transition towards democracy is quite likely to imply some semi-democratic phase when the country is at risk of civil war. Moreover, the democratic peace proposition says nothing at all about the likelihood of success of democratisation in a poor, oil-rich, Arab and Muslim country where there is little common ground to unite the democracy-imposing occupier and the defeated country. Finally, defeating the insurgency in the Sunni triangle of Iraq might require means which a democracy cannot even wish to apply. Whereas the promotion of democracy by war looks like a dead end and is doomed to failure, the prospects of promoting peace by exporting capitalism, growth, and prosperity look much better. Such a strategy even serves the purpose of later democratisation of those countries that now accept only creeping capitalism.

Why Democracies Excel

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT makes democracy possible asserts the U.S. State Department's Web site, subscribing to a highly influential argument: that poor countries must develop economically before they can democratize. But the historical data prove otherwise. Poor democracies have grown at least as fast as poor autocracies and have significantly outperformed the latter on most indicators of social well-being. They have also done much better at avoiding catastrophes. Dispelling the development first, democracy later argument is critical not only because it is wrong but also because it has led to atrocious policies-indeed, policies that have undermined interna tional efforts to improve the lives of hundreds of millions of people in the developing world. Those who believe that democracy can take hold only once a state has developed economically preach a go-slow approach to promoting democracy. But we and others who believe that countries often remain poor precisely because they retain autocratic political structures believe that a development-first strategy perpetuates a deadly cycle of poverty, conflict, and oppression.

Why Do Poor democracies Collect a Lot of Tariff Revenue?

Governments in developing countries typically collect a significantly higher proportion of their revenue in the form of trade taxes, than their developed country counterparts. This paper provides a political–economic explanation for this phenomenon. A model of trade in vertically differentiated products is used in order to determine the preferences of the households among different ways of raising government revenue. It is shown that the majority of households in poor countries will consume low‐quality, domestically produced varieties of differentiated products and would thus register a preference for the government to rely more on tariff rather than income tax revenue in order to finance its operations.

Why Have Poor Democracies Not Eliminated Poverty? A Suggestion

This article presents an argument on the issue why poor democracies have not eliminated poverty. The argument relies heavily on the distinction between direct and indirect methods of poverty alleviation a distinction that is customary in the economic literature. The article also states reasons why an analysis of poverty should be taken seriously and pursued critically.

Why Have Poor Democracies Not Eliminated Poverty? A Suggestion

Why Have Poor Democracies Not Eliminated Poverty? A Suggestion

Reading, Writing, and Regime Type: Democracy' Impact on Primary School Enrollment

This study examines the relationship between democracy and the accumulation of human capital. Specifically, I examine regime type' impact on primary school enrollment in the developing world. The statistical analysis establishes that poor democracies enroll a larger percentage of the school-age population than do their authoritarian counterparts. Models using dichotomous and continuous measures of democracy indicate that the institutions associated with individual rights and electoral competition have an important effect on primary school enrollment. Estimates from a selection bias model that account for education' impact on democracy corroborate the results. One possible explanation is that democratic politicians, facing electoral pressures, are compelled to provide a minimum level of educational opportunity for their citizens. Democracy is often criticized for its inability to insulate politicians from the demands made by society To the extent that the accumulation of human capital generates economic growth, democracy' inability to withstand popular demands may be an important advantage.

What Makes Democracies Endure?

What Makes Democracies Endure?* Adam Przeworski (bio), Michael Alvarez (bio), José Antonio Cheibub (bio), and Fernando Limongi (bio) If a country, any randomly selected country, is to have a democratic regime next year, what conditions should be present in that country and around the world this year? The answer is: democracy, affluence, growth with moderate inflation, declining inequality, a favorable international climate, and parliamentary institutions. This answer is based on counting instances of survival and death of political regimes in 135 countries observed annually between 1950 or the year of independence or the first year when economic data are available (“entry” year) and 1990 or the last year for which data are available (“exit” year), for a total of 4,318 country-years. 1 We found 224 regimes, of which 101 were democracies and 123 dictatorships, observing 40 transitions to dictatorship and 50 to democracy. Among democratic regimes, there were 50 parliamentary systems, 46 presidential systems, and 8 mixed systems. 2 Our definition of democracy is a minimalist one. We follow Robert A. Dahl’s 1971 classic Polyarchy in treating as democratic all regimes that hold elections in which the opposition has some chance of winning and taking office. When in doubt, we err in the direction of calling a regime dictatorial. Our classification is not idiosyncratic, but is closely related to several alternative scales of democracy. The rationale and the rules for classifying regimes are discussed in the Appendix below. [End Page 39] Democracy. It may seem tautological to say that a country should have a democratic regime this year in order to have a democracy next year. We do so in order to dispel the myth, prevalent in certain intellectual and political circles (particularly in the United States) since the late 1950s, that the route to democracy is a circuitous one. The claim is that 1) dictatorships are better at generating economic development in poor countries, and that 2) once countries have developed, their dictatorial regimes will give way to democracy. To get to democracy, then, one had to support, or at least tolerate, dictatorships. Both of the above propositions, however, are false: 1. While analyses of the impact of regimes on economic growth have generated divergent results, recent econometric evidence fails to uncover any clear regime effect. The average rate of investment is in fact slightly higher in poor democracies than in poor dictatorships; population growth is higher under dictatorships but labor productivity is lower; and investment is more efficiently allocated under democracies. Dictatorships are no more likely to generate economic growth than democracies. 3 Indeed, the 56 dictatorships with annual per-capita income of less than $1,000 when we first observed them simply failed to develop. 4 By the exit year, only 18 of them had made it (whether under democracy or continued dictatorship) to $1,000, only 6 to $2,000, and only 3 to more than $3,000. South Korea and Taiwan are exceptional: they are the only two dictatorships that started under $1,000 in 1950 and had annual per-capita income exceeding $5,000 by 1990. If we consider as “initially poor” those countries with less than $2,000, we find that among 98 dictatorships first observed below this level, by the exit year only 26 had made it to $2,000, 15 to $3,000, 7 to $4,000, and 4 to $5,000. These figures should be enough to dispel any notion that dictatorship somehow promotes economic growth in poor countries. 2. Democracies are not produced by the development of dictatorships. 5 If they were, the rate at which dictatorships make the transition to democracy would increase with the level of development: analyses of the survival prospects of dictatorships, however, indicate that this is not the case. Indeed, transitions to democracy are random with regard to the level of development: not a single transition to democracy can be predicted by the level of development alone. 6 Since poor dictatorships are no more likely to develop than poor democracies and since developed dictatorships are no more likely to become democracies than poor ones, dictatorships offer no advantage in attaining the dual goal of development and democracy. In order to strengthen...