Making Democratic Governance Work: The consequences for prosperity, welfare and peace

Pippa NorrisHarvard and Sydney Universities

www.pippanorris.com

New book for Cambridge, Sept 2012

Structure1. Theoretical questions and debate

• Does democratic governance expand prosperity, welfare and peace?

2. Mixed research design and evidence• Large N cross-national time series data 1984-2007 • Paired case comparisons

3. Overview of selected results 4. Conclusions and policy implications

– Democracy alone is not enough– Simple logic, complex proof– Need to strengthen democratic accountability and

governance capacity for most effective development outcomes

Making Democratic Governance Work How Regimes shape Prosperity, Welfare and Peace

New York: Cambridge University Press

Pippa Norris

Contents I: Introduction

1. Does democratic governance determine human security? 2. Theories of regime effects

II: Comparing regimes

3. The regime typology 4. Analyzing regime effects

III: Development outcomes

5. Prosperity 6. Welfare 7. Peace

IV: Conclusions

8. Why regimes matter

Core questions

• Intrinsic value of democratic governance is widely accepted for human rights

• But what is the instrumental impact of regime types on other development goals? Classic questions:

1. Is democratic governance good for economic prosperity?

2. Has this type of regime accelerated progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals, social welfare, and human development?

3. Does it generate a peace-dividend and reduce conflict at home?

Context for this book

• Recent decades have seen expanded investment to strengthen democracy and ‘good’ governance by international community and domestic stakeholders

• World Bank, UN, bilateral donors, NGOs• E.g. Today UNDP spends $1.2 to 1.5bn annually on

democratic governance• Third-wave era has also witnessed dramatic changes in

transitions from absolute autocracy and processes of democratization

• Have these changes generated significant benefits for human development? Not clear and timely to review evidence.

Context: Contrasting trajectories of democratization, 1980 - 2010

1980.0 2010.010.0

20.0

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

80.0

90.0

100.0

Venezuela

Venezuela

Gambia

Gambia

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe

Sudan

Sudan

China

ChinaRussia

Russia

Turkey

Turkey

South Africa

South Africa

Korea, Rep

Korea, Rep

Chile

Chile

Mongolia

Mongolia

Note: Change is monitored through Freedom House liberal democracy standardized index.Source: Freedom House

Contrasting trajectories of human development, 1980-2010

1980 20100.100

0.200

0.300

0.400

0.500

0.600

0.700

0.800

0.900

China

China

Korea (Rep)

Korea (Rep)

Indonesia

Indonesia

El Salvador

El Salvador

India

IndiaChile

Chile

Zambia

Liberia LiberiaDRC

DRCZimbabwe

Zimbabwe

1980 2010Note: Change is monitored through the UNDP 100-point Human Development Index.

Source: UNDP Human Development Report 2010.

Achieving the MDGs by 2015• “Success is uneven within countries and regions. • In 2015, more than 600 million people worldwide will still lack

access to improved water sources, almost one billion will be living in dire poverty, and hunger will remain a global challenge.

• Mothers will continue to die needlessly in childbirth, and children will still suffer and die from preventable diseases due to lack of adequate sanitation or nutrition.

• Meanwhile, biodiversity loss continues apace and greenhouse gas emissions continue to pose a major threat to people and ecosystems.

• We need an agenda that is concrete, action-oriented and focused on poverty eradication, inclusive economic and social development, environmental sustainability and peace and security for all.” (Ban Ki Moon, EcoSoc 2 July 2012)

The MDG Development Report 2012 http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

Why a new study?• Does democratic governance matter for development?• Vital for advocacy, strategic choice of developmental

priorities, and achievement of MDGs• Inconclusive and fragmented research literature

• Political science, welfare economics, and international relations• Articles usually focus narrowly on one or two developmental indicators• Many technical challenges confront analysts

• Poor conceptualization and weak theories• Little understanding of the underlying theoretical logic linking

democratic governance to human security

• Systematic bias in political science literature• Extensive focus on liberal democracy but remarkably little on the

concept and measures of governance capacity

1. THEORETICAL DEBATE

Prosperity, welfare and

peace

Skeptics

Democracy promotersState-builders

Debate about the links

Debate: skeptics

• Skeptics emphasize multiple ‘deep-drivers’ or fixed conditions of economic growth, human welfare, and peace– Geography

• E.g. natural resources, physical capital, infrastructure, agricultural production, access to trade, technology, and communications, vulnerability to tropical diseases and natural disasters, physical area, spill-over from interstate conflict.

– Social structures • E.g. ethnic fractionalization, religious cultures, colonial

histories, social inequalities, human capital, population size

Skeptical claims• Przeworski et al (2000):

• Type of democratic or autocratic regime has no impact on prosperity, positive or negative

• Doucouliagos and Ulubasoglu (2008)• Meta-review 84 empirical studies, same conclusions

• Ross (2004): • Democracy has no impact on welfare outcomes like child and maternal mortality

• Mansfield and Snyder (2007)• Transition from autocracy heightens risks of war and instability

• Lipset (1958) • Democratic governance is the consequence, not the cause, of development

(reverse causality)

• Jacob Zuma “You can’t eat democracy”

Debate: democracy-promoters• Need to strengthen democratic governance, including elections held at an

early stage in any peace-building and transition process

• Range of authors: Mort Halperin, Joseph Siegle, Michael Weinstein, Larry Diamond, Thomas Carothers, Michael McCaul

• Why? Intrinsic and instrumental benefits

• Michael McCaul: “As a system of government, democracy has clear advantages over other kinds of regimes. Democracies represent the will of the people and constrain the power of the state. They avoid the worst kinds of economic disasters, such as famine, and the political horrors, such as genocide, that occur in autocracies. On average, democracies also produce economic development just as well as other forms of government. Democracies also tend to provide for more stable government and more peaceful relations with other states compared to other regime types. Finally, most people in the world want democracy.”

Debate: State-builders• Samuel Huntington (1968) :

– Development requires state-building first, expanding government capacity, order, stability, and security i.e. strong executive capacity is an essential precondition prior to democratic elections.

• Ideas revived during the last decade – Robert Kaplan, Francis Fukuyama, Edward Mansfield and Jack Snyder

• State-builders challenge strategic order not the ultimate normative desirability of democracy

• Strengthened by economists– World Bank focus on ‘good governance’, the second generation neo-liberal

Washington consensus, and the ‘institutional turn’ in economics (Douglas North) emphasizing property rights and rule of law (Rodrik)

Revised equilibrium theory

• False choices: – Need for simultaneous balance in strengthening

both democracy and governance within certain structural constraints

• Liberal democracy:– Channel for public demands and state accountability

• Bureaucratic governance: – Capacity to respond to these demands with

provision of public goods and services

PUBLIC DEMANDS:EXECUTIVE AND

LEGISLATORS

PUBLIC SECTOR GOVERNANCE:

POLICY OUTPUTS

POLICY OUTCOMES:

CYCLICAL FEEDBACK LOOP

STRUCTURAL CONDITIONS

Governance Capacity

Democratic Accountability

2. RESEARCH DESIGN

DEMOCRACYRESTRICTED VOICE AND

ACCOUNTABILITYINCLUSIVE VOICE AND

ACCOUNTABILITY

GOVERNANCE

EXPANDED CAPACITY

LIMITED CAPACITY

DEMOCRACYRESTRICTED VOICE AND

ACCOUNTABILITYINCLUSIVE VOICE AND

ACCOUNTABILITY

GOVERNANCE

EXPANDED CAPACITY Eg Singapore Eg Chile

LIMITED CAPACITY

Eg Somalia

Eg Ghana

DEMOCRACYRESTRICTED VOICE AND

ACCOUNTABILITYINCLUSIVE VOICE AND

ACCOUNTABILITY

GOVERNANCE

EXPANDED CAPACITY

Bureaucratic autocracies

(Mixed performance)

Bureaucratic democracies

(Most effective performance)

LIMITED CAPACITY

Patronage autocracies

(Least effective performance)

Patronage democracies(Mixed performance)

Governance capacity

• Concept of governance: – The capacity of regime authorities to perform functions essential

for collective well-being.– Max Weber: The capacity of the state to protect citizens living

within its territory and to manage the delivery of public goods and services

• Measured: – PRSG’s Quality of Government index combines three components:

(1) Bureaucratic Quality; (2) Lack of corruption, and; (3) Law and Order.

– 100-pt standardized continuous scale 1984-2004– Also dichotomized into patronage and bureaucratic states

Liberal democracy

• Concept of liberal democracy: – The capacity of people to influence regime

authorities within their nation-state– Robert Dahl’s polyarchy

• Measured: – Freedom House index of political rights and civil

liberties (from 1972-date) – 100-pt standardized continuous scale– Dichotomized into autocracies and democracies

Regime typologyBureaucratic autocracies

Patronage democracies

Bureaucratic democracies

Patronage autocracies

2008

Bureaucratic autocracies

1984

Patronage democracies

Patronage autocracies

Bureaucratic democracies

Dependent variables

• Economic growth– Mean annual growth of income per capita in purchasing power

parity from the chain series index of the Penn World Tables• Human development

– Six MDG indicators– Life expectancy; child mortality; health (TB); gender equality

in education; education opportunities; and the UNDP human development index.

• Peace and conflict– Measures of civil wars from the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict

Dataset V4.0

Multivariate Controls• Economic

– Trade flows– Income (Per capita GDP)

• Geographic– Location (Latitude)– Area size (Sq.Km)– Natural resources (Oil/gas rents)

• Social Structure– Linguistic fractionalization– Religious fractionalization– Human capital (secondary schooling)– Logged population size– Internal conflict

• Cultural traditions– Muslim society– British colonial legacy

• Global trends– Year

Technical Challenges

• Reciprocal causation• Omitted variable bias in many models• Poor conceptualization and measurement error• Case selection bias• Non-random missing data • Need mixed design:

– Large-N panel (county-year) with OLS regression and panel corrected standard errors

– Thick case studies

3. DESCRIPTIVE RESULTS AND MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS

Income growth by type of regime

Note: Mean annual growth of income per capita in purchasing power parity from the chain series index of the Penn World Tables, 1984-2007.

Trends in economic growth

Growth by stable regimes

1a 1b 1c

Liberal democracy Bureaucratic governance

Democratic governance

b p PCSE b p PCSE b p PCSE

Liberal democracy (FH) -.004 .003 .023 * .014

Bureaucratic governance (ICRG)

-.003 .007 .032 * .016

Note: The models present the unstandardized beta coefficients and the statistical significance of Ordinary Least Squares linear regression models with Panel Corrected Standard Errors. The models control for prior geographic, economic, social structural, cultural traditions, and global trends . The dependent variable is income per capita in purchasing power parity from the chain series index of the Penn World Tables. *** p <0.001, ** p <0 .001, * p < 0.05. Number of observations 5,767 N countries 95, N of years 20.

The impact of democratic governance on economic growth

Human development by type of regime

Note: Development is monitored through the UNDP 100-point Human Development Index.Source: UNDP Human Development Report.

Mortality rate for under-fives per 1,000 live births, developing societies

Patronage autocracy Patronage democracy Bureaucratic autocracy Bureaucratic democracy0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

121

89

73

52

Child mortality is the ratio of deaths for children under five years old per 1000 live births 1990-2007(MDG indicators). Developing societies are defined as those with per capita income of less than $10,000, measured by income per capita in purchasing power parity from the chain series index of the Penn World Tables.

Educational opportunities in developing societies

Patronage autocracy Patronage democracy Bureaucratic autocracy Bureaucratic democracy0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

38

53 53

61

Educational opportunities: the gross male and female enrollment in secondary schools as a ratio of the corresponding population age group, 1984-2007 (World Development Indicators/UNESCO). Developing societies are defined as those with per capita income of less than $10,000, measured by income per capita in purchasing power parity from the chain series index of the Penn World Tables. Coef of Assoc .376***

Gender equality in education, developing societies

Patronage autocracy Patronage democracy Bureaucratic autocracy Bureaucratic democracy70

75

80

85

90

95

100

81

9390

97

Gender equality in education: the ratio of girls to boys enrolled in primary and secondary schools (WDI/UNESCO);. Developing societies are defined as those with per capita income of less than $10,000, measured by income per capita in purchasing power parity from the chain series index of the Penn World Tables. Coef of Assoc .412***

Conflict by type of regime

Note: The mean levels of internal, interstate, and internationalized conflict experienced by type of regime, 1984-2004. Source: Calculated from the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset

4. Conclusions

• We need to consider both democratic accountability and governance capacity

• The analysis confirms that overall, even with multiple controls, bureaucratic democracies usually demonstrate the best record of development, while patronage autocracies commonly the worst performers

• Yet not wholly consistent across diverse indices; depends, in part, on technical ‘fixes’

• Paired cases illustrate underlying processes and dynamics

Implications?

• For political science: – Need far better measures of governance capacity

• Teorell and Rothstein• Fukuyama

• For international community– Need to balance programs and consider the

interaction of democracy and governance– Democracy alone or governance alone are not

enough

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