Research

Expertise or Loyalty? Responsiveness in Authoritarian Institutions
What benefits do inclusive institutions have for authoritarian rulers? Previous research predominantly studied delegate behavior in authoritarian institutions but has been less well-equipped to assess government reactions to it. Analyzing the case of China’s People’s Political Consultative Conferences, I argue that an overlooked key benefit of inclusive institutions is their contribution to policy rationalization. Drawing on novel data spanning more than 9,000 policy suggestions submitted by delegates, their biographies, and the corresponding government responses, I illustrate that the regime values suggestions that signal expertise rather than those that display loyalty. While this is especially true for government departments of a more technical nature, I find no evidence suggesting that proposals highlighting grievances are responded to more favorably. These findings provide an important addition to our understanding of the role of authoritarian institutions in policy-making processes.

Why Do Authoritarian Parliaments Become Stronger?

Corruption is traditionally associated with undermining political regimes and institutions. Yet, contrary to this conventional wisdom, I theorize that corruption is a key factor associated with the strengthening of legislatures in authoritarian regimes. By engaging in corruption, authoritarian elites in ruling coalitions can build up networks of support and influence and ultimately, use their elevated position to impel more legislative powers vis-à-vis the executive. Examining panel data on the strength of legislatures in authoritarian regimes between 1946 and 2010, I show that authoritarian parliaments become stronger when levels of corruption in a given regime increase, especially in party-based regimes. More competitive electoral and legislative processes, however, do not significantly affect parliaments' strength. These findings contribute to our understanding of institutional changes in autocracies and highlight the centrality of elite contestations in determining institutional trajectories.
Economic, human development, and climate impacts of democracy(with Martin Lundstedt, Vanessa Boese-Schlosser, Natalia Natsika, Kelly Morrison, Yuko Sato, and Staffan I. Lindberg)
For generations, thinkers have debated whether democracy impacts socioeconomic outcomes. This question has become more relevant than ever since several authoritarian regimes claim superiority in delivering goods and services to citizens. The last decade’s impressive advances in data on political regimes along with vastly extended time series, progress in rigorous statistical modeling, and (quasi-) experimental techniques, have generated solid results identifying generalizable causal effects. Consequently, several strands of literature now demonstrate that being and/or becoming a democracy often has a substantial impact on economic prosperity, human development, and climate change mitigation. While other research focuses on technical solutions to improve economic outcomes, human development, and mitigation of climate change, we highlight that societies’ challenges are to a significant part dependent on countries’ political institutions.
The Democracy-Autocracy Divide in Party Systems: A New Measurement(with Fabio Angiolillo, Yuko Sato, and Staffan I. Lindberg)
Competition in party systems is traditionally conceptualized and measured around left-right or libertarian-traditional ideological dimensions. This paper adds another important cleavage to the study of party systems: the democracy-autocracy divide. It captures to what extent competition is structured around regime-type preferences and attitudes. In building on previous datasets and measurements on party systems’ ideology, we provide a new measurement able to define: (i) the intensity of the democracy-autocracy divide within and across party systems; (ii) whether the divide is driven by ruling parties’ coalition or oppositions; and (iii) the democracy-autocracy divide’s development across time between 1970-2018 and space, covering 178 countries for 3,151 election-years. We also analyze the consequences of the democracy-autocracy divide for political regimes and find that anti-pluralist governmental parties are more likely associated with autocratization onsets if the divide is low, and large divides driven by anti-pluralist oppositions can also threaten democracy.
Disinformation and Regime Survival(with Yuko Sato and Staffan I. Lindberg)
Disinformation has transformed into a global issue and while it is seen as a fundamental challenge to democracy, autocrats have long used it as part of their propaganda repertoire. Yet, no study has tested the effect of disinformation on regime breakdown or stability beyond country-specific studies. Drawing on novel measures from the Digital Society Project (DSP) estimating the levels of disinformation disseminated by governments across the globe between 2000-2021 and from the Episodes of Regime Transformation (ERT) dataset, we provide the first global comparative study linking disinformation to regime survival. We find that increasing levels of disinformation are associated with the decline of the quality of democracy. In authoritarian regimes, disinformation helps rulers to stay in power as regimes with higher levels of disinformation are less likely to experience democratization episodes. In democracies, on the other hand, disinformation increases the probability of autocratization onsets. As such, this study is the first to provide comparative evidence on the danger of disinformation on democracy as well as the prospects of democratization.
Micro-Level Explanations of Policy Innovation: Unpacking Local Government Officials’ Innovation Willingness in China(with Biao Huang and Xiaodie Wu)
Why are local officials willing to introduce policy innovations in authoritarian contexts? Prior research has identified top-down, bottom-up, and horizontal innovation pressures that motivate local governments to innovate. Yet, whether they also apply on the individual level is still under-researched, although local officials play a pivotal role in innovation adoption. We contribute to the literature on policy innovation with micro-level evidence from an original survey of local government officials in China. Our findings show that in this context, primarily top-down but also horizontal pressures prompt officials to innovate, while we find no evidence for the importance of bottom-up factors. However, we also identify elements of path dependence as officials with prior innovation experience are more willing to innovate and pay less attention to top-down drivers. These results expand our understanding of individual-level innovation willingness, especially in authoritarian regimes.