The Power Politics Origin of Democracy and Autocracy

• In Event: Political Transitions

Abstract

Democratization is widely regarded as a commitment device when redistribution alone fails to prevent conflict. The literature, however, usually treats the balance of power—physical force—as exogenous and fixed. We develop a model with endogenous power dynamics to incorporate the potential of an incumbent to consolidate power over time and conceptualize democracy as a regime where peaceful alternation of office could occur despite the underlying power dynamics. Four types of equilibria in which conflict never happens emerge, corresponding to four distinct regimes: healthy democracy, backsliding democracy, consolidated autocracy, and autocracy with power-sharing. Alternation of office is regular under healthy democracy, while it stops in the long run under backsliding democracy. The incumbent always consolidates power in consolidated autocracy, while in autocracy with power-sharing, the incumbent refrains from consolidating power to maintain peace with the opposition.

Authors

• Hongding Zhu, University of Chicago

• Zhaotian Luo, University of Chicago

• Adam Przeworski, New York University