Julia Bader

Would autocracies promote autocracy? A political economy perspective on regime-type export in regional neighbourhoods

Non-democratic regional powers are increasingly blamed for authoritarian backlashes in formerly democratising countries, or for the persistence of entrenched autocratic regimes in their neighbourhood. Yet there is a striking scarcity of theoretical deliberations as to why powerful autocracies should prefer autocratic neighbours over democratic ones. Employing a rational-choice model that links foreign policy behaviour to the logic of domestic politics, this article develops a theoretical argument why, and under which circumstances, autocratic regional powers should be expected to attempt to impact upon governance structures in their regional environment. Combining a political economy perspective with findings from transition literature, the authors conclude that, all else equal, autocratic regional powers have strong incentives to favour similar political systems in nearby states, but that this interest must be weighted against an overarching interest in political stability. The article discusses these theoretical findings against the backdrop of country cases in the regional environments of Russia and China.

The political economy of external exploitation. A comparative investigation of China's foreign relations

On the basis of the selectorate theory, this article examines the link between distributional policies, autocratic cooperation, and its potential for autocratic stability. It compares to what extent Cambodia, Myanmar, and Mongolia complied with Chinas key external interests in the period 1990–2010. Against this background, the article examines the cooperation between winning coalitions in these countries and China and thereby links a political economy argument to the discussion on regime type and regime stability in autocracy research. The article finds that autocratic exploitation is beneficial to authoritarian powers, such as China, but that hybrid regimes rather than closed autocracies are most vulnerable to such exploitation.

Propping up dictators? : Economic cooperation from China and its impact on authoritarian persistence in party and non-party regimes

This article investigates how Chinas economic cooperation affects authoritarian persistence elsewhere. For the period 1998–2008, the article assesses quantitatively whether the effects of economic cooperation from China vary, conditioned by the regime type of the recipient. The analysis finds that Chinas economic cooperation is associated with regime durability in party-based regimes. In non-party regimes, in contrast, it is associated with regime collapse.

A Chinese resource curse? The human rights effects of oil export dependence on China versus the United States

Critiques of China’s ‘oil diplomacy’ center on its alleged disregard for transparency and human rights, yet such claims ignore that the problematic relationship between resource extraction and human rights precedes Chinese market entry. This article explores whether human rights implications are more serious for states exporting oil to China compared to another major oil importer, the United States. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, we argue that oil export dependence on the USA affects human rights more negatively than dependence on China because of differences related to the timing of market entry. The United States established stable relationships with oil supplier states decades ago, creating dependencies that are sufficiently long-term for the implications of the resource curse to take hold, and taking place before human rights became part of the US foreign policy agenda. In comparison, China’s late entry into global oil markets in the early 1990s meant that market access often required the provision of generous loan packages, which may help counteract the detrimental effects of oil dependence. Our empirical analysis examines the impact of oil export dependence on China versus the USA on human rights in supplier states for the 1992–2010 period. Results show that oil producing states dependent on exports to the USA exhibit lower human rights performance than those exporting to China. We also demonstrate that lower human rights performance for US exporters stems from long-term trends rather than short-term fluctuations in oil export dependence.