Fiscal Conditions for Elections in Dictatorships

• In Event: Poster Session: Political Economy

Abstract

Why do some dictators introduce elections while other dictatorships remain closed? I argue that a survival-maximizing dictator's financial capacity determines whether they hold elections to promote their political security in office. As revenue increases from a low level, repression spending enables the dictator to introduce elections to reduce demands from the opposition. As revenue increases from a high level, the dictator buys-off the opposition with public spending and elections are less useful to placate the opposition. I provide evidence from China for how spending policies change as revenue increases. I also test how levels of revenue influence transitions from closed dictatorships to electoral authoritarianism with cross national data from 1972-2014. The results suggest that dictators introduce elections when they have sufficient coercive capacity to survive elections but lack the finances to ensure their security. I discuss the argument in the context of Egypt's first multiparty elections in 1976.

Author

• Austin Michael Mitchell, Tohoku University