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Chapter 1 sets out the main empirical puzzles of the book, which are (i) the early divergence of welfare trajectories in the region and (ii) their long persistence over time. Drawing on literature from authoritarianism studies and political economy, it lays out the theoretical argument explaining this empirical pattern by developing a novel analytical framework focused on elite incentives at the moment of regime formation and geostrategic constraints limiting their abilities to provide welfare. It also outlines the author’s explanation for the persistence of social policies over time and broadly describes the three types of welfare regime in the region. It sbows the limitations of existing theories in explaining this divergence and bigbligbts the book’s contribution to the literature. The theoretical argument is stated in general terms and sbould thus be of relevance to political economy and authoritarianism scholars more broadly. The chapter ends with an outline of the chapters to come.
The literature on political budget cycles (PBCs) does not offer a full-fledged theory about the effect of democratization. However, it does imply a non-linear effect along the regime spectrum: positive at the autocratic end, negative at the democratic end. We theoretically develop and empirically test this implication by pointing to two countervailing effects of democratization:executive constraintsandpolitical competition. While the former contains PBCs, the latter stimulates them. Because of their empirical covariation, PBCs occur primarily in hybrid regimes where the decision-making powers of the executive are relatively unrestricted and politics is relatively competitive. We also show that while executive constraints and political competition condition PBCs, what triggers the fluctuations iselectoral competitiveness. Only when incumbents fear electoral defeat, do they create PBCs. The study is based on novel data on public spending in 112 countries, covering the entire regime spectrum over the period from 1960 to 2006.
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