3 - The Crisis Roots of Electoral Authoritarianism: A Macro-Level Analysis

Summary

Chapter 3 tests the book’s central macro-level implication: that electoral autocracies tend to emerge in the wake of deep security, economic, and political crises – circumstances that allow such regimes to compellingly justify their rule as necessary to preserve order and stability. Based on a comprehensive cross-national analysis of regime transition and survival patterns for 1960-2014, this chapter demonstrates that socioeconomic and security crises are the best predictors of transitions to electoral authoritarianism. In contrast, other factors emphasized in the literature, including economic development, resource rents, state repressive capacity, and geopolitical and democratization pressures, do not consistently explain how these regimes emerge. The analysis also demonstrates that those electoral autocracies that are preceded by the deepest economic crises, and that subsequently manage to make the greatest progress toward restoring prosperity, have the lowest risk of democratization.