The effects of economic development on democratic institutions and repression in non-democratic regimes: theory and evidence

Abstract

This paper provides a theoretical rationale for the simultaneous use of repression and democratic institutions by a non-democratic government, as is often observed in reality. We find that economic development has different impacts on the levels of repression and democracy, depending on whether it appears in the form of rises in income or in education: A higher income level reduces democracy, whereas more education leads to both more democracy and more repression. These theoretical implications are corroborated by dynamic panel data regressions.

Public choice economics of the Ukraine crisis

“…Wintrobe (1990;1998) argues that economic performance, major political victory, or military conquest affect a tinpot dictator's loyalty-repression tradeoff. Kemnitz and Roessler (2023) find that economic performance impacts the level of repression in autocratic regimes. Guriev and Treisman (2019) show that informational autocrats spend more resources to create and maintain loyalty and allocate fewer resources to repress the citizenry.…”