Comparing autocracies in the early Twenty-first Century Vol 2: The Performance and Persistence of Autocracies Democratization Special Issues Series

Authoritarianism research has evolved into one of the fastest growing research fields in comparative politics. The newly awakened interest in autocratic regimes goes hand in hand with a lack of systematic research on the results of the political and substantive policy performance of variants of autocratic regimes. The contributions in this second volume of Comparing Autocracies are united by the assumption that the performance of political regimes and their persistence are related. Furthermore, autocratic institutions and the specific configurations of elite actors within authoritarian regime coalitions induce dictators to undertake certain policies, and that different authoritarian institutions are therefore an important piece of the puzzle of government performance in dictatorships. Based on these two prepositions, the contributions explore the differences between autocracies and democracies, as well as between different forms of non-democratic regimes, in regard to their outcome performance in selected policy fields; how political institutions affect autocratic performance and persistence; whether policy performance matter for the persistence of authoritarian rule; and what happens to dictators once autocratic regimes fall.

This book is an amalgam of articles from the journals Democratization, Contemporary Politics and Politische Vierteljahresschrift.

1. Introduction 2. Comparing the performance of autocracies: issues in measuring types of autocratic regimes and performance 3. Public Policy in Autocracies and Democracies 4. The incentives for pre-electoral coalitions in non-democratic elections 5. Autocracies, democracies and the violation of civil liberties 6. Hard times and regime failure: autocratic responses to economic downturns 7. Political regime and social performance James W. McGuire 8. Comparing ecological sustainability in autocracies and democracies 9. Property rights in dictatorships: kings protect property better than generals or party bosses 10. Accountable for what? Regime types, performance, and the fate of outgoing dictators, 1946-2004 11. External autocracy promotion? The autocracy-promoting potential of Russian and Chinese Foreign Policies

Aurel Croissant is Professor of Political Science at the Institute of Political Science, Ruprecht-Karls-University, Heidelberg, Germany.

Steffen Kailitz is Senior Researcher at the Hannah Arendt Institute for Research on Totalitarianism, Germany.

Patrick Köllner is Director of the Institute of Asian Studies (GIGA) and Professor of Political Science at Hamburg University, Germany.

Stefan Wurster is Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Political Science, Ruprecht-Karls-University, Germany.