The Social Groups Supporting or Opposing Political Regimes

• In Event: Consequences of Political Parties and Organizations in Autocracies

Abstract

Many theories focus on how different social groups influence important outcomes such as democratization or conflict. Yet, systematically assessing such theories, beyond case studies or small-n comparative studies, has been made difficult by a lack of comparable cross-country data. We introduce a dataset that remedies this gap, describing various characteristics of both the influential supporters and opponents of approximately 2000 political regimes from 202 countries, across 1789-2021. Drawing on the knowledge of more than 1000 country-experts, we estimate the size and main geographical location of regime support coalitions and opposition actors. We also record their identities in the form of social group compositions at different points in time. We first describe important trends across modern history in support coalition and opposition composition in both democracies and autocracies. We then investigate whether the identity, location, and size of regime support coalitions are related to what economic policies are implemented, and thus indirectly to redistribution and economic development.

Authors

• Carl Henrik Knutsen, Department of Political Science, University of Oslo

• Sirianne Dahlum, University of Oslo

• Magnus Bergli Rasmussen, University of Oslo

• Tore Wig, University of Oslo