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Thirdly, the authors do not take into account the effects of neighboring regimes. It is a well-known fact that bordering countries interplay and, thus might have some influence on observable patterns. For instance, a dictatorial neighbor might positively affect the survival of dictatorial regimes. Conversely, a democratic neighbor might help the entire region to maintain democratic regimes. Thus, further studies are warranted. There is also a fourth point: sometimes the book is excessively descriptive, throwing facts at the reader; these facts, including interesting findings, are frequently introduced in a very loose way, without a more extensive analysis about what binds them, identifying causes and consequences.
Putting it differently, at times the book is excessively factual at the expense of substantial explanation. For instance, the second and third chapters are extremely descriptive. Thus, it is not easy to evaluate how well established these conclusions are without such knowledge, even though it is very clear what the authors' conclusions are: economic development matters for the survival of democracy but not for the emergence of any specific political regime.
On the other hand, in these chapters we also observe a lack of conceptual distinctions. The concept of economic development, which is the object of analysis in the second chapter, is a controversial one and thus there are many ways to measure it. Although Democracy and development is not a place for a conceptual discussion, sometimes it is not totally clear what they call economic development.
At times, it seems that economic development amounts to income distribution, as when the authors talk about the survival of political regimes i. However, the relative importance of each factor is hazy. That point is worth noticing, as different measures of economic development might lead to quite different conclusions.
Surprisingly enough, chapter five has more substantial analyses. This chapter is about political instability, where the authors find some observable patterns that contradict the related literature. For instance, they find that the rate of investment does not fall when democracy is likely to die, but it does fall when dictatorships are likely to die.
This finding contradicts basic assumptions of an important branch of literature that argues that the security of property rights is critical for growth. See, for instance, North and Thomas ; North Accordingly, rulers must credibly commit themselves if they want potential investors to be interested in investing in their country.
The basic line of reasoning of that literature is that a state that is strong enough to guarantee the enforcement of property rights and thus investment and growth from an attack by private agents is also strong enough to encroach upon private property. As a result, the ruler must credibly commit himself to guaranteeing that he will not use his power to breach contracts. This literature regards democracy as the best way for rulers to commit themselves.
Because of this, Przeworski and his colleagues see their finding as an attack, or even a refutation, on the entire literature. However, this is not necessarily the case. Indeed, the fact that dictatorships and capitalism are more compatible than is supposed by this literature may be an attack on the idea of democracy as the only means to guarantee the enforcement of property rights. Yet, it is not an attack on the idea that rulers must commit themselves. For instance, in the contemporary world, dictators of underdeveloped countries may not be constrained by elections but they do need financial resources as a means to remain in power.
They are also unable to fight wars against developed countries, as they are far weaker on military grounds. Thus, underdeveloped countries are unable to breach contracts with capitalists from abroad as they are unable to face the consequences. On the other hand, democracy introduces some level of uncertainty as the opposition can always change policies toward investments.
Democracy also means the existence of several mechanisms of checks and balances and accountability. Thus, governments under democracy are always more constrained in pursuing their objectives; including entering into contracts and choosing policies toward capitalism. Hence, once investors are sure that governments are unable to breach contracts, they may prefer to make them with dictatorial governments as it means more freedom for both sides and, at times, even more money because of corruption.
Once we keep these possibilities in mind, it is not that strange to find that the rate of investment is likely to rise when democracies are falling: depending on the dictatorship, it may mean new business for foreign investors.
Hence, these questions need further investigation from a micro-level perspective. There is still a last point to make which concerns the very nature of the comparative method, closely related to the remarks above.
Although the authors find many patterns in their study, the main question receives no answer at all. In fact, judging by the comprehensiveness and sophistication of their analysis, it seems that that question might have no answer. Perhaps it is worth thinking about the very nature of this question, which has been asked countless times by other authors. In addition, many important studies in comparative politics have tried to answer similar questions employing broad labels such as: democracy or authoritarianism; presidential or parliamentary governments; systems of plurality and of proportional representation.
Are parliamentary governments more stable than presidential ones? In most cases, these labels are correctly applied and thus the question is not to look for a better application of them.
The problem is that systems that can be labeled in the same way may have totally different micro-features. For instance, the identity of the agenda setter, gatekeepers, and veto players may be very different within two parliamentary systems and, thus, the macro-consequence of these micro-features can be different, even though both systems receive the very same label.
Indeed, it seems the problem is the very nature of these labels: they are too comprehensive. Perhaps we have here an explanation of why it is possible to advance multiple lines of reasoning once we employ broad labels: 8 8 For instance, former works by Przeworski and colleagues show that political scientists have been advancing several lines of reasoning about the question of political regimes and development.
See Przeworski and Limongi Policies seldom result from deliberations of a single entity; rather, they emerge from a competitive process within the state. Indeed, states are composed of people who have very different interests and will compete for them.
Even autocracies rarely have the unity presumed by most analyses that employ broad labels. Therefore, in order to advance our understanding of how political institutions work, we must take into account these kinds of micro-features: the preferences of relevant actors; competition within bureaucracies and the rules by which these individual preferences aggregate into collective outcomes.
See, for instance, Bates From the first pages of this book, it seems that Przeworski and his colleagues agree with all of this. On page 1 they say:. Political regimes, however one thinks about them, are complex. They combine many institutional features that can have emergent effects and that may work at cross-purposes.
They may, at the same time, encourage economic rationality but hinder economic initiative, grant government the authority necessary to promote development but also allow them to evade popular control, and foster long term thinking at the cost of short term disasters, and vice-versa. However, even though they believe this, they advance their analysis.
Perhaps the main lesson we can draw from this is that such comprehensive work, although important, has its limitations as a means to understand political phenomena. There is also a need for more studies based on institutional micro-features. Income distribution, political instability and investment, European Economic Review , v.
Institutions and economic performance. Some social requisites of democracy: economic development and political legitimacy, American Political Science Review , v. The rise of the Western world : a new economic history. Cambridge University Press, 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. 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. These figures should be enough to dispel any notion that dictatorship somehow promotes economic growth in poor countries. Democracies are not produced by the development of dictatorships. 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.
Arguably the importance of liberal democracy is two-fold: no other system of government guarantees the right to free expression of political preference; and no other system promotes progress through peaceful competition between different interests and ideas.
This question is being asked a lot more as democracy is threatened by various forces around the world. Some question the value of the popular vote when it leads to seismic shifts such as Brexit, and the election of demagogues who threaten liberal values. Even the American system, for a long time the exemplar of democratic freedoms, seems so polarized that it is in danger of becoming impotent, its ability to endure technological, demographic, and cultural change in doubt.
Meanwhile, over the last years, a more technocratic, uniform form of politics has taken hold in the European Union EU , where democracy is arguably less responsive to citizens and large elements of the population feel excluded from the process of government. More recently, non-democratic, authoritarian governments such as China have been praised for enduring the COVID pandemic better than democracies, because they are better able to compel specific behaviour from citizens without concern for individual liberties, or dissent from a free press.
All this may question the need for democracy. Liberal democracy, in theory at least, provides a mechanism for some form of rule by proportionate representation, with citizens empowered to bring about change through participation and persuade the powerful to act for the greater good. But democracy is a process, not a state. Countries such as the UK and the US were not true democracies until relatively recently. In the US it was not until that African-Americans in its southern states gained a guaranteed right to vote.
Democracy has endured in part due to its ability to accommodate change from below through expansion of voting rights, and greater protection of civil liberties. By contrast authoritarianism is, by its nature, centralized and limiting of free thought and expression.
It can accomplish rapid change, but only ordained from above. Perhaps what has been witnessed in democracies since signals a need for further renewal and evolution of democratic systems. Because the more averse to change democracies become, the more likely it is they will wither. Democracy has played a vital role in the story of civilization, helping transform the world from power structures of monarchy, empire, and conquest into popular rule, self-determination, and peaceful co-existence.
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