Jan Teorell

Pathways from Authoritarianism

This paper uses a new typology of authoritarian regimes to explore the extent to which regime type explains the survival (and breakdown) of non-democratic regimes as well as the impact of different types of authoritarian regimes on democratic development. Our results demonstrate that different types of authoritarian regime face different propensities to develop toward democracy. Hence the nature of the authoritarian regime in question deserves to be added to the list of democracys essential preconditions. One regime type—the limited multiparty system—stands out as the prime stepping stone to democracy. The fact that this regime type has become the most common form of authoritarianism can be seen as a promising sign for the future.

Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy: A New Approach

InthewakeoftheColdWar,democracyhasgainedthestatusofamantra.Yetthereisnoconsensusabouthowtoconceptualizeand measure regimes such that meaningful comparisons can be made through time and across countries. In this prescriptive article, we argueforanewapproachtoconceptualizationandmeasurement.Wefirstreviewsomeoftheweaknessesamongtraditionalapproaches. Wethenlayoutourapproach,whichmaybecharacterizedas historical, multidimensional, disaggregated,and transparent.Weendby reviewing some of the payoffs such an approach might bring to the study of democracy.

The Merit of Meritocratization: Politics, Bureaucracy, and the Institutional Deterrents of Corruption

Comparative studies of corruption focus on the selection and incentives of policymakers. With few exceptions, actors who are in charge of implementing policies have been neglected. This article analyzes an original data set on the bureaucratic features and its effects on corruption in fifty-two countries. Two empirical findings challenge the conventional wisdom in literature. First, certain bureaucratic factors, particularly meritocratic recruitment, reduce corruption, even when controlling for a large set of alternative explanations. Second, the analysis shows that other allegedly relevant bureaucratic factors, such as public employees’ competitive salaries, career stability, or internal promotion, do not have a significant impact.

Cultural and economic prerequisites of democracy: Reassessing recent evidence

The purpose of this article is to reassess two influential theories of democratic development: the theory of democratic culture and the theory of economic development. The leading predecessors in each domain—Ronald Inglehart and Adam Przeworski—are the prime targets of analysis. We take issue with recent evidence presented by these authors on three grounds: the evidence (1) confuses “basic” criteria of democracy with possible “quality” criteria (Inglehart); (2) conceptualizes democracy in dichotomous rather than continuous terms (Przeworski); and (3) fails to account for endogeneity and contingent effects (Inglehart). In correcting for these shortcomings, we present striking results. In the case of democratic culture, the theory lacks support; neither overt support for democracy nor “self-expression values” affect democratic development. In the case of economic development, earlier findings must be refined. Although the largest impact of modernization is found among more democratized countries, we also find an effect among “semi-democracies.”

Linking Social Capital to Political Participation: Voluntary Associations and Networks of Recruitment in Sweden

That organizational involvement has a positive impact on political action is a well-established finding in empirical research around the world. To account for this, theorists since Tocqueville have pointed to the returns in human capital, in particular ‘civic skills’, yielded by associations. This article, by contrast, is a study of whether social capital theory can help explain the same effect. According to the logic of ‘weak ties’, organizational involvement provides bridging social capital by connecting the individual to a wider range of people. As a result, the input of requests for participation increases and this ultimately leads to more activity. Unspecified in this argument, however, is what aspect of associational memberships is most conducive to such weak ties: the sheer number of memberships, or the extent to which ones memberships provide links to people of dissimilar social origin. In an unprecedented empirical test based on survey data from Sweden in 1997, it is shown that being connected to multiple voluntary associations is what matters for political activity, not the extent to which ones memberships cut across social cleavages. Moreover, the social capital mechanism of recruitment is more important in explaining this effect than the human capital mechanism of civic skills, since the former can account for why even passive members, not just organizational activists, may become more prone to take political action.

Authoritarian regime types revisited: updated data in comparative perspective

This article introduces a modified and updated version of the authoritarian regime type dataset first introduced by Hadenius and Teorell. The basic logic and merits of this dataset is presented, previously published criticism of the index is addressed and practical advice for potential users is provided. The dataset is also compared theoretically and empirically with the datasets provided by Cheibub et al., and Geddes et al. It is argued that the choice of dataset is likely to have a substantial effect on the results of empirical research. The different datasets all have their respective strengths and weaknesses. However, our typology of authoritarianism distinguishes itself from the alternative categorisations in that it recognises the heterogeneous character of electoral regimes and provides a category corresponding to the theoretically interesting class of ‘electoral authoritarian’ regimes.

Explaining thewelfare state: power resources vs. the Quality of Government

Abstract in Undetermined The hitherto most successful theory explaining why similar industrialized market economies have developed such varying systems for social protection is the Power Resource Theory (PRT), according to which the generosity of the welfare state is a function of working class mobilization. In this paper, we argue that there is an under-theorized link in the micro-foundations for PRT, namely why wage earners trying to cope with social risks and demand for redistribution would turn to the state for a solution. Our approach, the Quality of Government (QoG) theory, stresses the importance of trustworthy, impartial, and uncorrupted government institutions as a precondition for citizens’ willingness to support policies for social insurance. Drawing on data on 18 OECD countries during 1984–2000, we find (a) that QoG positively affects the size and generosity of the welfare state, and (b) that the effect of working class mobilization on welfare state generosity increases with the level of QoG. (Less)

An Introduction to Special Issue: The Causes and Consequences of Secret Ballot Reform

This article introduces a collection of papers that explore two understudied but critical questions of enduring concern for the study of democratization. Was the secret ballot driven by the same forces that drove the rise of democracy more generally? Did the secret ballot end electoral fraud, or was its effect merely endogenous to economic modernization more generally? This article provides historical context for the rise of the secret ballot, systematizing some of the complexities and ambiguities of the concept of the “secret ballot” itself. Second, we summarize the approach and some of the main findings of the papers in the volume, offering an outline of the broader lessons that emerge from the papers. Finally, we reflect upon the significance of a historical study of the secret ballot for technological and institutional reforms for contemporary democracy.

V-Dem: A New Way to Measure Democracy

In the last few decades, Western governments have spent huge sums of money to promote democracy abroad. We do not know which, if any, of these programs actually work. If we cannot measure democracy in sufficient detail and with the necessary nuance, we cannot mark its progress and setbacks or affect its future course. While distinguishing the most democratic countries from the least democratic ones is fairly easy, it has proven to be much harder to make finer distinctions. Here we present a new effort aimed at measuring democracy, the Varieties of Democracy Project (V-Dem).

Quality of Government

The authors argue that the concept of quality of government should be best understood as that of having impartial government institutions. This definition avoids functionalism, ignores the contents of specific policies in favor of the procedures for how they are implemented, and pertain to the output side of the political system. They discuss this concept in relation to several proposed alternative definitions.