Democracy and Development:
Political Institutions and Well-Being in
the World, 1950-1990
ACLP: Alvarez, Cheibub, Limongi & Przeworski
Presentation by:
Margarita Lakova
Comparative Politics
Prof. Marco Giuliani
EPS 2013
The following two questions were examined by
looking at the experiences of 135 countries
between 1950-1990:
1.
Is economic development conductive to
political democracy?
2.
Does democracy foster or hinder material
welfare?
Classification of democracies and
dictatorships
“Democracy is a system in which incumbents lose elections
and leave office when the rules so dictate”
Contestation is key:

Ex-ante uncertainty: anyone can win

Ex-post irreversibility: losers don’t try to change the results

Repeatability
Types of Democracy:

Presidential


Construct: government "serves at the pleasure of the
president"
Operationalization: the president can dismiss the
government (implicit)

Parliamentary

Mixed
 Construct: government serves at pleasure of
legislature
 Operationalization: the legislature "can dismiss the
government“
 Construct: government answers to both legislature and
president
 Operationalization: everything else, presumably.
Dictatorship
Basically anything that isn’t a democracy.
Might be “mobilizing” or “exclusionary”

Mobilizing
 Construct: It organizes "permanent political
participation" with a party and "elections"
 Operationalization: Had at least one political party

Exclusionary
 Construct: Doesn't organize participation
 Operationalization: No parties. Whether it has
"elections" doesn't matter.
Types of Dictatorship:

Bureaucratic
 Construct: Governs according to published,
codified laws
 Operationalization: has a legislature

Autocratic
 Construct: A "sultanistic" (Linz) regime, with
"neither rules of operation nor publicly
announced universalistic intentions."
 Operationalization: no legislature
Criticism:
The following are not part of the democracy / dictatorship
definitions:

Social/economic equality

“Accountability”, “responsibility”, ”responsiveness”

Freedom, liberty

Military's role

They need to consider variations in dictatorships
rather than putting them into a single category.
The ACLP Data Set

Covers 135 countries

For an “entry” year is considered:
 1950
 the year of independence
 the first year for which data on economic growth is available

For an “exit” year is considered:
 1990
 the last year for which data on economic growth is available
*Azerbaijan is replaced by USSR
**Germany is replace by West Germany and East Germany
ACLP Codebook
Our countries of interest
Name of Country
Code
Venezuela
Bulgaria
West Germany
East Germany
Greece
Hungary
Italy
USSR
77
103
108
109
110
111
114
127
Some Regime Variables
REG: Dummy variable coded:
 1 for dictatorships
 0 for democracies
Transition years are coded as the regime
that emerges in that year.


AGER: Age in years of the current regime
as classified by REG. The year in which
the regime comes into existence is coded
as 1.
Value of AGER in 1950:
Name of
Country
Venezuela
Code
REG
AGER
77
1
3
Bulgaria
103
1
17
West Germany
108
0
2
East Germany
109
-
-
Greece
110
0
2
Hungary
111
1
33
Italy
114
0
5
USSR
127
1
81
Regime Variables LAWS and AUT
LAWS: Classification of political regimes in which
dictatorships are distinguished by the existence
of a legislature (elected or appointed). Coded:
 0 if democracy;
 1 if bureaucracy (dictatorships with a
legislature);
 2 if autocracy (dictatorships without a
legislature).
Transition years are coded as the regime that
emerges in that year.
AUT: Identical to LAWS, except that coding was
adjusted for transitional regimes.
Adjustments for Transitional Dictatorships
in AUT
There are four potentially problematic sequences
(B=bureaucracy, A = autocracy and D =democracy)
when we code the variable LAWS:

(1) B/AB or D/AB, where / stands for the occurrence
of a coup (or a change in administration).
This may indicate a transitional autocracy, that is, a
regime that is reorganizing after the breakdown.

(2) A/BD or B/AD. These sequences pose a problem
because they may indicate a liberalizing bureaucracy
or autocracy, that is, a regime that is in the process
of becoming democratic.
From our countries of interest only
Greece falls in the cases recorded in
AUT
Name of the
country
Greece
Code
Year(s)
From
To
Number
of years
77
1973
A
B
1
A = Autocracy; B = Bureaucracy
All Regime variables











REG
INST: Classification of political regimes in which
democracies are distinguished by the type of executive.
0 if dictatorship
1 if parliamentary democracy
2 if mixed democracy
3 if presidential democracy
INST2: Identical to INST, except for the cases that
resulted in a transition from above (by the incumbent).
DIVIDED: Classification of political regimes in which
dictatorships are distinguished by the number of formal
powers. Coded:
0 if democracy
1 if dictatorship with a legislature or at least one political
party
2 if dictatorship with executive only

MOBILIZE: Classification of political regimes in which
dictatorships are distinguished by the presence of political
parties. Coded:
0 if democracy
1 if mobilizing dictatorship (with parties)
2 if exclusionary dictatorship (without parties)
•
AUT
•
LAWS



The following table is a composed of our countries of
interest in the last year available according to all the above
stated regime variable:
COUNTRY YEAR REG INST INST2 DIVIDED MOBILIZE AUT LAWS
77
(Venezuela)
103
(Bulgaria)
108
(W.Germany)
109
(E.Germany)
110
(Greece)
111
(Hungary)
114
(Italy)
127
(USSR)
1990
0
3
3
0
0
0
0
1990
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
1990
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
1988
1
0
0
1
1
1
1
1990
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
1990
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
1990
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
1989
1
0
0
1
1
1
1
Conclusions
1.
The two regimes that are classified as
autocracies (East Germany and USSR) have
the same value according to all the variables.
2.
The same applies to the regimes listed as
democracies with the exception of Venezuela,
which differs only in the INST variable that puts
the country in the group of countries with
presidential democracy. Nevertheless, all the
other variables test the same.
Thank you for your attention!