Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of democracy and political plurality. It involves the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo, and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic voting.[1][2] Political scientists have created many typologies describing variations of authoritarian forms of government.[2] Authoritarian regimes may be either autocratic or oligarchic and may be based upon the rule of a party or the military.[3][4] States that have a blurred boundary between democracy and authoritarianism have some times been characterized as "hybrid democracies", "hybrid regimes" or "competitive authoritarian" states.[5][6][7]
This article is about authoritarianism in political science and organizational studies. For authoritarianism in psychology, see Authoritarian personality. For a form of government where power is held by a single individual, see Autocracy.
The political scientist Juan Linz, in an influential[8] 1964 work, An Authoritarian Regime: Spain, defined authoritarianism as possessing four qualities:
Minimally defined, an authoritarian government lacks free and competitive direct elections to legislatures, free and competitive direct or indirect elections for executives, or both.[11][12][13][14] Broadly defined, authoritarian states include countries that lack civil liberties such as freedom of religion, or countries in which the government and the opposition do not alternate in power at least once following free elections.[15] Authoritarian states might contain nominally democratic institutions such as political parties, legislatures and elections which are managed to entrench authoritarian rule and can feature fraudulent, non-competitive elections.[16] Since 1946, the share of authoritarian states in the international political system increased until the mid-1970s but declined from then until the year 2000.[17]
Economic effects
The effects of political regime types on economic growth have been debated by scholars. A 1993 assessment of existing scholarship led Adam Przeworski and Fernando Limongi to conclude, "we do not know whether democracy fosters or hinders economic growth."[128] In 2010, Dani Rodrik wrote that democracies outperform autocracies in terms of long-term economic growth, economic stability, adjustments to external economic shocks, human capital investment, and economic equality.[129] A 2019 study by Daron Acemoglu, Suresh Naidu, Pascual Restrepo, and James A. Robinson found that democracy increases GDP per capita by about 20 percent over the long-term.[130] According to Amartya Sen, no functioning liberal democracy has ever suffered a large-scale famine.[131]
Scholars have identified that autocracies may have an advantage when it comes to rapid industrialization.[132] Seymour Martin Lipset argued that low-income authoritarian regimes have certain technocratic "efficiency-enhancing advantages" over low-income democracies that gives authoritarian regimes an advantage in economic development.[133] By contrast, Morton H. Halperin, Joseph T. Siegle and Michael M. Weinstein (2005) argue that democracies "realize superior development performance" over authoritarianism, pointing out that poor democracies are more likely to have steadier economic growth and less likely to experience economic and humanitarian catastrophes (such as refugee crises) than authoritarian regimes; that civil liberties in democracies act as a curb on corruption and misuse of resources; and that democracies are more adaptable than authoritarian regimes.[133]
Studies suggest that several health indicators (life expectancy and infant and maternal mortality) have a stronger and more significant association with democracy than they have with GDP per capita, size of the public sector or income inequality.[134]
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