Discussion paper

DP15344 The Political Economics of Non-democracy

We survey recent theoretical and empirical literature on political economy of non-democracies. Dictators face many challenges to their rule: internal, such as palace coups or breakdown of their support coalition, or external, such as mass protests or revolutions. We analyze strategic decisions made by dictators --- hiring political loyalists to positions that require competence, restricting media freedom at the cost of sacrificing bureaucratic efficiency, running a propaganda campaign, organizing electoral fraud, purging associates and opponents, and repressing citizens --- as driven by the desire to maximize the regime's chances of staying in power. We argue that the key to understanding the functioning and ultimately the fate of a nondemocratic regime is the information flows within the regime, and the institutions that govern these information flows.

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Citation

Egorov, G and K Sonin (2020), ‘DP15344 The Political Economics of Non-democracy‘, CEPR Discussion Paper No. 15344. CEPR Press, Paris & London. https://cepr.org/publications/dp15344