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Electoral turnout as an indicator of political participation, political equality and, thus, democratic performance is one of the most important variables in the study of elections. While numerous studies have contributed to the explanation of electoral turnout, the picture is still incomplete. Notably, a variable which pertains to the core of elections, the competitiveness of electoral races, is not fully understood yet. We contribute to filling this gap by accounting for different effects of competitiveness in democracies and autocracies, as well as against the background of varying institutional settings. Our analyses suggest that vote margins are a suitable measure of competitiveness, but only in democracies with plurality or majority electoral systems. Ex ante measures of competitiveness capture the concept of competitiveness more comprehensively and are applicable across electoral systems and regime types.

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Only few studies have investigated the link between the heterogeneity of non-democratic regime types and environmental protection. This study disaggregates authoritarian regimes and identifies four patterns of environmental performance. Using 16 indicators of environmental performance, autocratic subtypes such as royal dictatorships, military dictatorships, hegemonic autocracies, and competitive authoritarian regimes are compared and contrasted with democracies. The results demonstrate that a democracy advantage in the protection of the environment, as many former studies find it, typically cannot be confirmed for all autocratic subtypes. We rather detect a quite manifold picture when the variety of authoritarianism is taken into account.

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