The Limits of Meritocracy in Stabilizing Democracy and the Twin Importance of Bureaucratic Impartiality and Effectiveness

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
David Delfs Erbo Andersen
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Support For Democracy ◽  
Democratic Stability ◽  
Bureaucratic Behavior ◽  
Coups D'etat

Abstract Theories connecting meritocracy and democratic stability are heavily understudied, and there are few attempts to empirically disentangle the potential mechanisms. This article proposes a novel explanation, emphasizing that bureaucratic impartiality and effectiveness provide separate shields that stabilize democracies. Impartiality protects the opposition from unlawful discrimination, which raises support for democracy among the (potential) losers of elections and reduces the incentives to rebel or stage coups d’état, whereas effectiveness serves incumbent policies, which raises support among the (potential) winners and reduces the likelihood of incumbent takeovers. I find support for these propositions in comparative-historical analyses of a few paradigmatic cases—interwar Finland, Czechoslovakia, and Germany—with similar levels of economic development, imperial-autocratic legacies, and meritocratic types of administration but different regime outcomes. The results show that both impartial and effective bureaucratic behavior rather than meritocratic recruitment norms as such are important stabilizers of democracy. Yet they emphasize the importance of bureaucratic effectiveness in raising the perception that votes count to change outcomes on the ground and thus that democracy makes a difference. I argue that this should have a wider significance for the study of contemporary processes of democratic recession.

Ghana, 1982–6: the Politics of the P.N.D.C.

1987 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 613-642 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baffour Agyeman-Duah
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Military Leaders ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Military ◽  
Coups D'etat

The history of the past three decades in Africa would seem to confirm that the rôle of the military in political and economic development may no longer be considered transient. Armed interventions have become institutionalised, if not constitutionalised, in many African states. By December 1985 no less than 60 successful and 71 attempted coups d'état had occurred in 37 states since January 1956.1 Just as most of the first generation of African politicians chose ‘socialism’ to explain and justify their policies, so ‘revolution’ has become the rallying cry for the military leaders, even though they have often quickly been content just to ‘take over’, and not to transform, the previous civilian régime.

scholarly journals Landowners and Democracy

2017 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Albertus
Keyword(s):  
Land Reform ◽  
Negative Influence ◽  
New Democracies ◽  
Democratic Deficit ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Support For Democracy ◽  
Democratic Stability ◽  
Extension Of Suffrage

Are large landowners, especially those engaged in labor-dependent agriculture, detrimental to democratization and the subsequent survival of democracy? This assumption is at the heart of both canonical and recent influential work on regime transition and durability. Using an original panel data set on the extent of labor-dependent agriculture in countries across the world since 1930, the author finds that labor-dependent agriculture was indeed historically bad for democratic stability and stunted the extension of suffrage, parliamentary independence, and free and fair elections. However, the negative influence of labor-dependent agriculture on democracy started to turn positive around the time of democracy's third wave. The dual threats of land reform and costly domestic insurgencies in that period—often with more potent consequences under dictators—plausibly prompted landowners to push for democracy with strong horizontal constraints and favorable institutions that could protect their property more reliably over the long term than could dictatorship. The shift in support for democracy by labor-dependent landowners is a major untold story of democracy's third wave and helps explain the persistent democratic deficit in many new democracies.

Negotiating Independence in Mauritius

2005 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaheen Mozaffar
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Learning Curve ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Stability ◽  
Electoral Institutions ◽  
Strategic Bargaining ◽  
Democratic Polity ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
Democratic Stability ◽  
New Institutions

AbstractThe democratic institutions, especially the electoral institutions for converting votes into seats that were chosen during independence negotiations, have been the key to democratic stability in Mauritius. These institutions emerged out of strategic bargaining structured around a combination of contextual and contingent variables. Conflicting political interests reflecting a combination of class, sectarian and communal interests influenced the institutional preferences of Mauritian elites involved in independence negotiations, leading them to converge on institutional designs that they expected would protect and promote those interests in the new democratic polity. Once in place, the new institutions represented equilibrium outcomes, creating incentives for all actors, engendering a learning curve in peaceful accommodation of inter-group conflicts, and establishing the political basis for social stability, democratic consolidation, and economic development.

Democracy in America? Partisanship, Polarization, and the Robustness of Support for Democracy in the United States

2020 ◽  
Vol 114 (2) ◽  
pp. 392-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
MATTHEW H. GRAHAM ◽  
MILAN W. SVOLIK
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
Support For Democracy ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Democratic Stability ◽  
Democratic Principles ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Do So

Is support for democracy in the United States robust enough to deter undemocratic behavior by elected politicians? We develop a model of the public as a democratic check and evaluate it using two empirical strategies: an original, nationally representative candidate-choice experiment in which some politicians take positions that violate key democratic principles, and a natural experiment that occurred during Montana’s 2017 special election for the U.S. House. Our research design allows us to infer Americans’ willingness to trade-off democratic principles for other valid but potentially conflicting considerations such as political ideology, partisan loyalty, and policy preferences. We find the U.S. public’s viability as a democratic check to be strikingly limited: only a small fraction of Americans prioritize democratic principles in their electoral choices, and their tendency to do so is decreasing in several measures of polarization, including the strength of partisanship, policy extremism, and candidate platform divergence. Our findings echo classic arguments about the importance of political moderation and cross-cutting cleavages for democratic stability and highlight the dangers that polarization represents for democracy.

Endogenous Democratization

2003 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 517-549 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carles Boix ◽  
Susan C. Stokes
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Sample Selection ◽  
Transition To Democracy ◽  
Model Specification ◽  
World War ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
To Come ◽  
Democratic Stability

The authors show that economic development increases the probability that a country will undergo a transition to democracy. These results contradict the finding of Przeworski and his associates, that development causes democracy to last but not to come into existence in the first place. By dealing adequately with problems of sample selection and model specification, the authors discover that economic growth does cause nondemocracies to democratize. They show that the effect of economic development on the probability of a transition to democracy in the hundred years between the mid-nineteenth century and World War II was substantial, indeed, even stronger than its effect on democratic stability. They also show that, in more recent decades, some countries that developed but remained dictatorships would, because of their development, be expected to democratize in as few as three years after achieving a per capita income of $12,000 per capita.

scholarly journals Who Doesn’t Want Democracy? A Multilevel Analysis of Elite and Mass Attitudes

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-281
Author(s):  
Brandon Gorman ◽  
Ijlal Naqvi ◽  
Charles Kurzman
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Regression Models ◽  
High Income ◽  
Underdeveloped Countries ◽  
Country Level ◽  
Individual Support ◽  
Support For Democracy ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
Mass Attitudes

Despite its global rise in popularity, a significant number of people still oppose democracy. The current study evaluates three competing theories of opposition to democracy–developmentalist, culturalist, and elitist – using a series of multi-level regression models that combine individualand country-level variables. Results of our statistical analyses suggest that: 1) country-level indicators of social, political, and economic development are not consistently related to individual support for democracy; 2) macro-cultural factors have mixed effects on individual support for democracy; and 3) individual income and education have strong effects on individual support for democracy, but this relationship is mediated by country-level economic development. Specifically, we find that high-income individuals in relatively underdeveloped countries are more likely to oppose democracy than high-income individuals in wealthier countries. These results suggest that economic, social, and political development do not necessarily go together.

scholarly journals Stable Support for Democracy in East and Southeast Asia? Examining Citizens’ Trust in Democratic Institutions

East Asia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlene Mauk
Keyword(s):  
Social Trust ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
Value Orientations ◽  
Performance Evaluations ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Support For Democracy ◽  
East And Southeast Asia ◽  
Democratic Stability

AbstractRecent democratic regressions and crises suggest democracy is at risk across East and Southeast Asia. One of the factors that can determine democratic stability are citizens’ attitudes. While previous research has concentrated on support for democracy-in-principle, this contribution argues that it is political trust, i.e. support for democracy-in-practice, which is crucial for democratic stability. For democracies to be stable, political trust should be high as well as rooted in long-term factors like liberal democratic value orientations or social trust to protect it from short-term fluctuations following economic crises or political scandals. This contribution therefore examines not only the current levels and development of political trust but also whether it is influenced more by long-term factors (liberal democratic value orientations, social trust) or short-term factors (economic performance evaluations, incumbent support). The empirical analysis shows political trust in five East and Southeast Asian democracies (Indonesia, Japan, Mongolia, South Korea, Taiwan) to be mostly mediocre and primarily dependent on economic performance evaluations and incumbent support. Among the five democracies, citizens in Japan appear most resilient to democratic regressions; on the other hand, Taiwanese democracy seems least equipped to master future crises.

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