Democratisation of hybrid regimes Flashcards
Levitsky and Way
When do such CA regimes democratize?
Levitsky and Way (2010) look at linkages to the West and incumbents’ organizational power.
When the linkage is low, external pressure to democratize is weaker. Whether they are able to stay in power depends on how well they organize in general.
If the state is well organized, you are more likely to survive as a stable authoritarian regime.
Leverage and linkage and the combination between the two will force the regime to democratise.
How does linkage to the West help with democratisation?
- Higher linkages made autocratic abuse more salient.
- Ethnic groups are going to put pressure on the regime.
- Democracies will put pressure on the regime.
Wright
Does aid affect democratisation? How may it hinder or help?
Foreign aid may help but also hinder, so there needs to be an analysis instead of presuming anything in general.
It may hinder because:
* Aid increases rents (resources) to those in power, making them less dependent on locals. Similarly to finding natural resources overnight. They don’t have to be responsive to their citizens.
* Makes it easier to exclude others from power (you don’t need people in your coalition because you get money from the outside)
* Can contribute to the development of “bad” institutions.
It may help:
* If you use aid as a conditionality to create pressure to democratise.
When will dictators accept aid as a conditionality for democratisation?
When they have good reason to believe they will survive after democratisation. The dictators goal is always to stay in power, so they would not take free money from other regimes if that meant losing power.
Therefore, the effect of aid on democratization will vary depending on factors that increase the chances of a dictator surviving political liberalisation.
Wright
What affects a dictator’s incentives to democratise?
1) The size of the dictator’s distributional coalition
* The larger the winning coalition, the more goods you will have to distribute in order to make them happy. A lot of people will directly benefit from this.
* A large distributional coalition and party patronage (people know who you are) increase the chances of winning an election if the dictator democratises.
2) Economic growth
* Recent economic growth increases the likelihood of the dictator surviving into the next time period, i.e., an uprising is less likely.
Wright
How does aid affect a small coalition regime’s probability of transitioning to democracy?
While small coalition regimes (mostly military regimes) are the most likely to transition to democracy, increasing aid diminishes this prospect.
In military regimes, there is a clear negative relationship between aid and the likelihood of democratisation.
Wright
Whenever the winning coalition is … and you receive aid, the probability of transitioning to democracy increases.
Whenever the winning coalition is big and you receive aid, the probability of transitioning to democracy increases.
Wright
Does aid increase or decrease the prospects of democratization in regimes with large coalitions?
Increase.
Wright
How does a country’s poor or strong growth affect the likelihood of democratisation, if receiving aid?
Strong growth = no effect. In regimes with a recent record of strong growth, aid has no effect on the likelihood of democratisation.
Poor growth = significant positive effect In countries experiencing poor growth, aid nearly doubles the likelihood of democratisation.
Wright
How did the Cold War affect the relationship between aid and democratisation?
Very strong evidence that before the cold war, democracies were providing aid with less conditionality. Rather to make them support their own regime. Increasing coalition size did not affect aid’s effect on democratisation (as it did in the main results)
After the cold war, aid increased the likelihood of democratisation when the coalition size was large but not when it is small (same as the main results)
Can external military interventions help a country democratise?
It can produce elections and legislatures, but fails to increase the level of democracy to a point that most scholars would consider these countries democratic.
