If Democracy Fails, Can Autocracy Succeed? Political Regimes and Social Performance in the Age of Autocratization
Angelo Vito Panaro (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg)
April 8, 15:00 CET
Description:
Amid the third wave of autocratization, questions of regime performance have moved to the forefront of social policy research, fuelling debate over the claim that democracies today “fail to deliver”. This paper contributes to this debate by comparing the social performance of democracies and autocracies. It asks three questions: (i) do democracies underperform relative to autocracies in delivering social benefits and outcomes? (ii) why do some democracies fall short while others succeed? and (iii) under what conditions can autocracies deliver effectively? To answer these, the study employs a global panel dataset covering 1990-2024. Regime type is classified using the Regimes of the World (RoW) datafrom the V-Dem (v15) dataset, while social performance is assessed across four dimensions: public social spending, coverage of state-funded unemployment and pension programs, socio-economic inequality, and poverty. Preliminary findings challenge the “democracy-not-delivering” argument, showing that democratic stock and incumbents’ legitimation strategies are critical determinants of social performance in autocracies.
Readings:
Panaro, A. V. (2025). All that is left is all that matters: the politics of social spending in authoritarian regimes. Democratization, 32(6), 1385–1410. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2025.2466186
Panaro, A. V. If Democracy Fails, Can Autocracy Succeed? Political Regimes and Social Performance in the Age of Autocratization [sent via email to the registered participants]
