Growth is good for dictators
Issandr El AmraniHere's an interesting theory courtesy of The Monkey Cage:
Contractions in economic outputs due to drought increase the likelihood of democratic reform while short-term weather-related jumps in output decrease that likelihood. That is the core finding of a new article in the American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics by Paul Burke and Andrew Leigh (ungated version here, h/t to Kevin Lewis). The effects are substantial. The authors estimate that a one-year recession in an autocratic nation that reduced GDP per capita growth by 6 percentage points increases that country's probability of undergoing significant democratic reform in the next year by 8 percentage points. The authors are careful to point out that these are short-term effects that do not necessarily tell us anything about long-term relationships between income and democracy. That is: shocks in economic outputs may determine the timing of regime change rather than whether a country eventually becomes (and stays) more democratic.
I wonder if you were to track agricultural output and (as much as they can be quantified) democratic openings and closings in the Arab world, you would find such a correlation. Could the current regression seen in Morocco be explained by good crops in the last year, contributing to decent GDP growth? Can you explain the opening of 2004-2006 by a poorly performing economy in 1999-2003 that demanded that a new management team be put in place (in the shape of the Nazif government)? Did Egypt's relatively strong performance (in terms of GDP growth) between 2005 and now make it easier for the regime to pull back from that opening?
Interesting questions all, but I would still look first to specific contingencies: electoral cycles, the policies of external actors, psychology of key regime actors, etc.
Reader Comments (7)
Read Jose Maria Maravall "The Myth of the Authoritarian Advantage." Of course growth helps dictators but it makes their legitimacy more fragile.
Sorry I did not read original article closely at first. Looks interesting. Droughts seem to work a bit differently than general downward mobility, definitely more pressure for democratization there as Amartya Sen noted. Rural vs urban unrest also works differently. China's political elites are worried about rural poverty more than urban unrest, and they probably have good reason.
Repression cycles might also be a factor, a good dictator needs to restrict political space or coopt opposition very selectively when things are going downhill economically because falling ec standards + greater political openness => trouble.
I knew this would get your attention... thanks for the pointers.
I'm being lazy and haven't read the article yet, but will add a little anecdote that always comes to mind on this point. Late-90s, lots of talk in Saudi about Shura councils, phasing out subsidies on electricity, privatizing utilities, etc. Whaddyaknow, a period of low oil prices. 2000s to the present, steadily rising oil prices, all that stuff goes steadily by the wayside. That said, ultimately greater prosperity if it takes root and productive wealth generation and the self-confident citizens it produces grow more numerous, well that ain't so good for autocracy either. MENA's problem is that it so often seems stuck between the two. Enough oil and strategic rents (along with outside hired guns) to keep people minimally plugging along and not revolting, but not enough wealth to give them the power to set the zaeem and his cohorts aside.
Syria would seem to offer a counterpoint to this theory--in the midst of a multi-year drought with no significant reform.
Good point!
Not to be a party-pooper, on the Syrian exception, but it is worth noting that FDI in Syria has ticked way up in recent years (aid has too, but the dollar amounts are lower) and likely has managed to cushion the regime's finances despite the drought. As a % of GDP, FDI has more than tripled in the latter half of the decade versus the late-90s and early 2000s. See World Bank data/chart here: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.KLT.DINV.WD.GD.ZS/countries/1W-SY?display=graph
And that I would suspect (without looking at further data) is a direct result of oil money sloshing around the region searching for outlets. Politics and finances obviously have a complicated interaction there, but the data suggest there's been enough money to keep GDP growth per capita ticking along in at least moderately positive territory: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD.ZG/countries/1W-SY?display=graph