scholarly journals Economic inequality, income, and their effects on electoral and civil society participation in authoritarian regimes

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 269-297
Author(s):  
Lars Pelke
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Resource Theory ◽  
Individual Income ◽  
Civil Society Participation ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
Level Data

AbstractWhat effect does economic inequality in authoritarian regimes have upon the political participation of its citizens? Do individual income and repression each have a greater effect than economic inequality? Three prominent theories, namely the Conflict, Relative Power, and Resource Theories address the inequality-participation puzzle in the context of democracies. However, theoretical arguments and empirical evidence for non-democratic regimes are scarce. I argue that it is individual income and the level of repression rather than economic inequality that explain political participation in autocracies. Using three-level hierarchical models that combine micro and macro level data for 65,000 individuals covering a various set of 31 authoritarian regimes and 54 country-years, this analysis demonstrates that higher levels of economic inequality hardly suppress political participation among all citizens. However, individual income has a more powerfully effect on civil society participation, while the level of repression decreases the voting likelihood more powerful than income. These findings suggest that the Resource Theory generates the greatest empirical support for autocracies.

Civil Society and the Legacies of Dictatorship

2007 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 539-567 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Bernhard ◽  
Ekrem Karakoç
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Hierarchical Linear Modeling ◽  
National Level ◽  
World Values Survey ◽  
Organizational Life ◽  
Linear Modeling ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Civil Society Participation ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Different Types

The literature on civil society in postcommunist regimes highlights its weakness as compared with civil society in other democracies. In this article the authors make a general argument on how different patterns of antecedent dictatorship affect the development of civil society across a range of democracies. They examine the slow emergence of two behaviors associated with a robust civil society—participation in organizational life and in protest—and explain variation across countries as a function of regime history. They draw their individual-level data from the World Values Survey and analyze the behavior of over forty-one thousand citizens from forty-two democracies. Using methods of hierarchical linear modeling to control for both national-level and individual-level factors, the authors find that different types of dictatorship and variation in their duration produce different negative legacies for the development of civil society.

scholarly journals Preelection Mobilization and Electoral Outcome in Authoritarian Regimes

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Ali Kadivar
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Support ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Independent Effect ◽  
Final Version ◽  
Electoral Outcome ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Authoritarian Elections

Final version of the paper is available here:http://mobilizationjournal.org/doi/abs/10.17813/1086-671X-22-3-293Does pre-election protest have an effect on the outcomes of authoritarian elections? Electoral authoritarian regimes use elections to consolidate their power and claim democratic legitimacy. Nonetheless, on some occasions authoritarian incumbents lose elections despite their advantages and a democratic breakthrough is achieved. I propose that pre-election protest contributes to such election results. Existing scholarship focuses primarily on the effectiveness of post-election upheavals, but the effects of pre-election protest are still theoretically and empirically understudied. This paper proposes a theory for why pre-election contention has an independent effect on incumbent defeat of authoritarian regimes and democratization. I present empirical support for the association between pre-election protest activities, incumbent defeat, and democratization using data from 190 elections across 65 countries with non-democratic regimes. The findings of this analysis have important implications for studies of social movements, authoritarian politics, and democratization.

scholarly journals Economic Inequality and Campaign Participation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick Solt ◽  
Michael Ritter
Keyword(s):  
Multilevel Models ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
State Level ◽  
Political Campaigns ◽  
Resource Theory ◽  
Relative Power ◽  
Power Theory ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Level Data

Objective. How does economic inequality shape participation in political campaigns? Previous research has found that higher inequality makes people of all incomes less likely to participate in politics, consistent with relative power theory, which holds that greater inequality enables wealthier citizens to more fully reshape the political landscape to their own advantage. Campaign activities, however, demand more time and money than previously examined forms of participation and so might better conform to the predictions of resource theory, which focuses narrowly on the ramifications of inequality for individuals’ resources. Methods. We combine individual-level data on donations, meeting attendance, and volunteer work for political campaigns with measures of state-level income inequality to construct a series of multilevel models. Results. The analyses reveal that where inequality is higher, campaign participation is lower among individuals of all incomes. Conclusion. Patterns of participation in even resource-intensive campaign activities provide support for the relative power theory. Forthcoming, Social Science Quarterly.

scholarly journals Economic Inequality and Campaign Participation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick Solt ◽  
Michael Ritter
Keyword(s):  
Multilevel Models ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
State Level ◽  
Political Campaigns ◽  
Resource Theory ◽  
Relative Power ◽  
Power Theory ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Level Data

Objective. How does economic inequality shape participation in political campaigns? Previous research has found that higher inequality makes people of all incomes less likely to participate in politics, consistent with relative power theory, which holds that greater inequality enables wealthier citizens to more fully reshape the political landscape to their own advantage. Campaign activities, however, demand more time and money than previously examined forms of participation and so might better conform to the predictions of resource theory, which focuses narrowly on the ramifications of inequality for individuals’ resources. Methods. We combine individual-level data on donations, meeting attendance, and volunteer work for political campaigns with measures of state-level income inequality to construct a series of multilevel models. Results. The analyses reveal that where inequality is higher, campaign participation is lower among individuals of all incomes. Conclusion. Patterns of participation in even resource-intensive campaign activities provide support for the relative power theory. Forthcoming, Social Science Quarterly.

Introductory: Civil Society, Participation, and Religion1

Human Affairs ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Jana Plichtová
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Civil Society Participation

Introductory: Civil Society, Participation, and Religion

Engagement Through the Diaspora Channel

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S. Danielson
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Statistical Models ◽  
State Level ◽  
The State ◽  
Multivariate Statistical ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Municipal Level

The first empirical task is to identify the characteristics of municipalities which US-based migrants have come together to support financially. Using a nationwide, municipal-level data set compiled by the author, the chapter estimates several multivariate statistical models to compare municipalities that did not benefit from the 3x1 Program for Migrants with those that did, and seeks to explain variation in the number and value of 3x1 projects. The analysis shows that migrants are more likely to contribute where migrant civil society has become more deeply institutionalized at the state level and in places with longer histories as migrant-sending places. Furthermore, the results suggest that political factors are at play, as projects have disproportionately benefited states and municipalities where the PAN had a stronger presence, with fewer occurring elsewhere.

Peace Above the Glass Ceiling: The Historical Relationship between Female Political Empowerment and Civil Conflict

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 879-893 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sirianne Dahlum ◽  
Tore Wig
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
Reverse Causality ◽  
Political Empowerment ◽  
Strong Link ◽  
Participation Of Women ◽  
Historical Relationship ◽  
Global Data

Abstract We investigate whether female political empowerment is conducive to civil peace, drawing on global data on female political empowerment over a 200-year period, from the Varieties of Democracy database. We augment previous research by expanding the temporal scope, looking at a novel inventory of female political empowerment measures, attending to reverse-causality and omitted variable issues, and separating between relevant causal mechanisms. We find a strong link between female political empowerment and civil peace, which is particularly pronounced in the twentieth century. We find evidence that this relationship is driven both by women’s political participation—particularly the bottom-up political participation of women, e.g., in civil society—and the culture that conduces it. This is the strongest evidence to date that there is a robust link between female political empowerment and civil peace, stemming from both institutional and cultural mechanisms.

scholarly journals From Black to Blue Skies: Civil Society Perceptions of Air Pollution in Shanghai

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Amanda K. Winter ◽  
Huong Le ◽  
Simon Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Air Pollution ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
Qualitative Case Study ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Ecological Civilization ◽  
Civil Society Participation ◽  
Quality Indexes

Abstract This paper explores the perception and politics of air pollution in Shanghai. We present a qualitative case study based on a literature review of relevant policies and research on civil society and air pollution, in dialogue with air quality indexes and field research data. We engage with the concept of China's authoritarian environmentalism and the political context of ecological civilization. We find that discussions about air pollution are often placed in a frame that is both locally temporal (environment) and internationally developmentalist (economy). We raise questions from an example of three applications with different presentations of air quality index measures for the same time and place. This example and frame highlight the central role and connection between technology, data and evidence, and pollution visibility in the case of the perception of air pollution. Our findings then point to two gaps in authoritarian environmentalism research, revealing a need to better understand (1) the role of technology within this governance context, and (2) the tensions created from this non-participatory approach with ecological civilization, which calls for civil society participation.

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