Democracy in Isolation
The cultural foundations of modern democracies
Damian Ruck et al.
Nature Human Behaviour, March 2020, Pages 265-269
Abstract:
National democracy is a rare thing in human history and its stability has long been tied to the cultural values of citizens. Yet it has not been established whether changing cultural values made modern democracy possible or whether those values were a response to democratic institutions. Here we combine longitudinal data and cohort information of nearly 500,000 individuals from 109 nations to track the co-evolution of democratic values and institutions over the last century. We find that cultural values of openness towards diversity predict a shift towards democracy and that nations with low institutional confidence are prone to political instability. In addition, the presence of democratic institutions did not predict any substantive changes in the measured cultural values. These results hold accounting for other factors, including gross domestic product per capita and non-independence between nations due to shared cultural ancestry. Cultural values lead to, rather than follow, the emergence of democracy. This indicates that current stable democracies will be under threat, should cultural values of openness to diversity and institutional confidence substantially decline.
Facebook Causes Protests
Leopoldo Fergusson & Carlos Molina
MIT Working Paper, December 2019
Abstract:
The Internet and social media have been considered crucial determinants of recent political turmoil and protests. To estimate the causal impact of Facebook on collective action for a large set of countries, we use its release in a given language as an exogenous source of variation in access to social media where the language is spoken. Using country-, subnational-, and individual-level data, we show that Facebook has had a significant and sizable positive impact on citizen protests. Complementary findings show that reverse causality and correlated changes in protest reporting are not driving these results. Facebook's effect is particularly important in countries with: underlying conditions that facilitate using the technology (more Internet access), grievances (economic downturns), few other opportunities to coordinate action against authorities (no freedom of assembly, repression of the opposition), and factors that make the country more conflict prone (natural resource abundance, denser urban populations). The effect is also stronger in countries with either very low or very high levels of accountability. Finally, we find that Facebook impacts individuals with very different characteristics; we detect no evidence of displacement in other forms of political participation or news consumption; and we document an increase in individuals' perceived freedom to express what they think, to join political organizations, to vote, and to voice their political opinions.
Beaconism and the Trumpian Metamorphosis of Chinese Liberal Intellectuals
Yao Lin
Journal of Contemporary China, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper examines the puzzling phenomenon that many Chinese liberal intellectuals fervently idolize Donald Trump and embrace the alt-right ideologies he epitomizes. Rejecting 'pure tactics' and 'neoliberal affinity' explanations, I argue that the Trumpian metamorphosis of Chinese liberal intellectuals is precipitated by their 'beacon complex', which has 'political' and 'civilizational' components. Political beaconism grows from the traumatizing lived experience of Maoist totalitarianism, sanitizes the West and particularly the United States as politically near-perfect, and gives rise to both a neoliberal affinity and a latent hostility toward baizuo. Civilizational beaconism, sharing with its nationalistic counterpart - civilizational vindicativism - the heritages of scientific racism and social Darwinism imported in late-Qing, renders the Chinese liberal intelligentsia receptive to anti-immigrant and Islamophobic paranoia, exacerbates its anti-baizuo sentiments, and catalyzes its Trumpian convergence with Chinese non-liberals.
Autocratic Consent to International Law: The Case of the International Criminal Court's Jurisdiction, 1998-2017
Barry Hashimoto
International Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article contributes to an understanding of why autocrats have accepted the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. Leveraging their ability to obstruct their own prosecution, autocrats have traded off the risk of unwanted prosecutions against the deterrent threat that prosecutions pose to political rivals and patrons of their enemies conspiring to oust them. The risk of unwanted prosecutions and the court's deterrent threat both arise because ICC prosecutions credibly communicate guilt for international crimes to capital-disbursing democracies, which may, insofar as possible, use leader-specific economic statecraft to prevent the administration of foreign states by those whom the court signals are guilty of international crimes. Analysis using fixed effects and matching shows that a greater reliance on capital publicly financed by democracies increased the probability that a state accepted the court's jurisdiction only when it was an autocracy (1998-2017). ICC jurisdiction also lengthened the tenure of autocrats and reduced the severity of civil conflict in autocracies.
The Psychology of Repression and Polarization
Elizabeth Nugent
World Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
How does political polarization occur under repressive conditions? Drawing on psychological theories of social identity, the author posits that the nature of repression drives polarization. Repression alters group identities, changing the perceived distance between groups and ultimately shaping the level of affective and preference polarization between them through differentiation processes. The author tests the proposed causal relationship using mixed-method data and analysis. The results of a laboratory experiment reveal that exposure to a targeted repression prime results in greater in-group identification and polarization between groups, whereas exposure to a widespread prime results in decreased levels of these same measurements. The effect of the primes appears to be mediated through group identification. Case-study evidence of polarization between political opposition groups that were differently repressed in Egypt and Tunisia reinforces these results. The findings have implications for understanding how polarization, as conditioned by repression, may alter the likelihood of the cooperative behavior among opposition actors necessary for the success of democratic politics.
Happiness and the Quality of Government
John Helliwell, Haifang Huang & Shun Wang
NBER Working Paper, March 2020
Abstract:
This chapter uses happiness data to assess the quality of government. Our happiness data are drawn from the Gallup World Poll, starting in 2005 and extending to 2017 or 2018. In our analysis of the panel of more than 150 countries and generally over 1,500 national-level observations, we show that government delivery quality is significantly correlated with national happiness, but democratic quality is not. We also analyze other quality of government indicators. Confidence in government is correlated with happiness, however forms of democracy and government spending seem not. We further discuss three channels (including peace and conflict, trust, and inequality) whereby quality of government and happiness are linked. We finally summarize what has been learned about how government policies could be formed to improve citizens' happiness.
Silencing Their Critics: How Government Restrictions Against Civil Society Affect International 'Naming and Shaming'
Hannah Smidt et al.
British Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
International 'naming and shaming' campaigns rely on domestic civil society organizations (CSOs) for information on local human rights conditions. To stop this flow of information, some governments restrict CSOs, for example by limiting their access to funding. Do such restrictions reduce international naming and shaming campaigns that rely on information from domestic CSOs? This article argues that on the one hand, restrictions may reduce CSOs' ability and motives to monitor local abuses. On the other hand, these organizations may mobilize against restrictions and find new ways of delivering information on human rights violations to international publics. Using a cross-national dataset and in-depth evidence from Egypt, the study finds that low numbers of restrictions trigger shaming by international non-governmental organizations. Yet once governments impose multiple types of restrictions, it becomes harder for CSOs to adapt, resulting in fewer international shaming campaigns.
Liberation Technology: Mobile Phones and Political Mobilization in Africa
Marco Manacorda & Andrea Tesei
Econometrica, March 2020, Pages 533-567
Abstract:
Can digital information and communication technology foster mass political mobilization? We use a novel georeferenced data set for the entire African continent between 1998 and 2012 on the coverage of mobile phone signal together with georeferenced data from multiple sources on the occurrence of protests and on individual participation in protests to bring this argument to empirical scrutiny. We find that while mobile phones are instrumental to mass mobilization, this only happens during economic downturns, when reasons for grievance emerge and the cost of participation falls. The results are in line with insights from a network model with imperfect information and strategic complementarities in protest occurrence. Mobile phones make individuals more responsive to both changes in economic conditions - a mechanism that we ascribe to enhanced information - and to their neighbors' participation - a mechanism that we ascribe to enhanced coordination.
Taking it personal? Investigating regime personalization as an autocratic survival strategy
Alexander Taaning Grundholm
Democratization, forthcoming
Abstract:
Personalist autocracy is on the rise globally. Dictators' increasing tendency to concentrate power in their own hands has major implications for the political stability of autocracies. However, the exact nature of this impact is unclear. On the one hand, regime personalization has been linked to a reduction in the likelihood of coups. On the other hand, personalization has also been linked to an increase in the likelihood of civil war. This article reconciles these findings and argues that personalization involves a trade-off between different kinds of threats against a dictator. By increasing the degree of personalization, dictators reduce their vulnerability to insider challenges while at the same time increasing their vulnerability to outsider challenges. These expectations are corroborated by a time-series cross-sectional analysis of a global sample of autocratic regimes. The findings help shed light on recent instances of longstanding autocrats being overthrown during episodes of mass mobilization.
Framing the Narrative: Female Fighters, External Audience Attitudes, and Transnational Support for Armed Rebellions
Devorah Manekin & Reed Wood
Journal of Conflict Resolution, forthcoming
Abstract:
Female combatants play a central role in rebel efforts to cultivate and disseminate positive narratives regarding the movement and its political goals. Yet, the effectiveness of such strategies in shaping audience attitudes or generating tangible benefits for the group remains unclear. We propose and test a theory regarding the channels through which female fighters advance rebel goals. We argue that female fighters positively influence audience attitudes toward rebel groups by strengthening observers' beliefs about their legitimacy and their decision to use armed tactics. We further contend that these effects directly help them secure support from transnational nonstate actors and indirectly promote state support. We assess our arguments by combining a novel survey experiment in two countries with analyses of new cross-national data on female combatants and information about transnational support for rebels. The empirical results support our arguments and demonstrate the impact of gender framing on rebel efforts to secure support.
Ethnic Conflict and the Limits of Nonviolent Resistance
Costantino Pischedda
Security Studies, April 2020, Pages 362-391
Abstract:
Recent research shows that campaigns of nonviolent resistance are much more successful in producing radical political change than armed rebellion. I argue that the study of nonviolent resistance has paid insufficient attention to a key condition for success-a shared ethnic identity between challengers and government. When challengers and incumbent belong to different ethnic groups, the prospects of campaign success are drastically curtailed, as this situation of "ethnic conflict" inhibits the mechanisms through which nonviolent resistance enables success: emergence of a critical mass of challengers, defection of segments of the security apparatus and the regime inner circle, and development of feelings of sympathy for the opposition cause among key government decision makers. Statistical analysis of all nonviolent campaigns from 1945 to 2006 supports my argument. Nonviolent ethnic campaigns are significantly and substantially less likely to succeed and draw both fewer participants and government defectors than their nonethnic counterparts.