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Begin New Search Publishing Institution Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)

31. Sequential Requisites Analysis: A New Method for Analyzing Sequential Relationships in Ordinal Data

Author:
Patrik Lindenfors, Joshua Krusell, and Staffan I. Lindberg
Publication Date:
08-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
This paper presents a new method inspired by evolutionary biology for analyzing longer sequences of requisites for the emergence of particular outcome variables across numerous combinations of ordinal variables in social science analysis. The approach involves repeated pairwise investigations of states in a set of variables and identifying what states in the variables that occur before states in all other variables. We illustrate the proposed method by analyzing a set of variables from version 6 of the V-Dem dataset (Coppedge et al. 2015a, b). With a large set of indicators measured over many years, the method makes it possible to explore long, complex sequences across many variables in quantitative datasets. This affords an opportunity, for example, to disentangle the sequential requisites of failing and successful sequences in democratization. For policy purposes this is instrumental: Which components of democracy are most exogenous and least endogenous and therefore the ideal targets for democracy promotion at different stages?
Topic:
Democracy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

32. Neopatrimonialism and Democracy: An Empirical Investigation of Africa's Political Regimes

Author:
Rachel Sigman and Staffan I. Lindberg
Publication Date:
11-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
One of the most common adjectives used to describe democracy in sub-Saharan Africa is "neopatrimonial". Characterized by strong executives, pervasive clientelism and use of state resources for political legitimation (Bratton and van de Walle 1997), neopatrimonial democracy has been (controversially) associated with a range of (mostly undesirable) social, political and economic outcomes. This paper offers an empirical assessment of neopatrimonialism in Africa's political regimes. We show that, contrary to conventional wisdom, African regimes vary both quantitatively and qualitatively in their embodiment of neopatrimonial rule. Moreover, we find no clear evidence indicating that neopatrimonialism necessarily impedes the advancement or survival of democracy
Topic:
Democracy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

33. Local Democracy and Economic Growth

Author:
Carl Henrik Knutsen, John Gerring, and Svend-Erik Skaaning
Publication Date:
11-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
Theoretical work on the institutional sources of economic growth regards decentralization and democracy in a positive light. Despite this, empirical work shows that neither fiscal decentralization nor national democracy is a robust predictor of per capita GDP growth. We argue that these theories have failed to bear fruit because they ignore the linchpin of decentralization and democracy, namely local democracy. Democracy at a local level enhances economic growth by enabling decentralized policy selection and incentivizing local politicians to select policies that benefit economic development, including the provision of local public goods. We test for the relationship using a novel measure of local democracy with global coverage and time series extending from 1900 to the present. We find robust evidence that local democracy nurtures growth. This relationship holds up when accounting for country- and year-fixed effects, when controlling for democracy at the national level, and when we treat our measure of local democracy as an endogenous regressor. Additional tests reveal that the relationship is clearer in contexts where our argument suggests that it should operate more strongly, namely (national- level) democracies and in periods and regions where local-level institutions have a more pronounced role in policy-making.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus