Conceptualizing and Measuring Autocratization Episodes

Abstract

Autocratization affects democracies and autocracies with gradual setbacks in democratic qualities. The current debate on autocratization is lacking a comprehensive and systematic overview of different autocratization concepts and empirical measures. Addressing the gap, this research note identifies and discusses different strategies of operationalizing autocratization periods with continuous democracy data from Freedom House, Polity IV and the Varieties of Democracy (V‐Dem) project. Evidence for 26 different autocratization measures for 1900‐2019 reveals major inconsistencies between different measures. Our findings suggest that autocratization episodes should be measured with V‐Dem’s Electoral Democracy Index (EDI) or with V‐Dem’s Liberal Democracy Index (LDI), which provide fine‐grained data and the possibility to test for measurement noise. A 10% threshold reduces the risk of conceptual stretching and enables researchers to detect both autocratization episodes that do and do not result in regime breakdown. We also recommend researchers to additionally test empirical findings with different carefully selected thresholds.

Analyzing national policy styles empirically using the Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI): insights into long‐term patterns of policy‐making

“…For example, Howlett and Tosun (2019b) propose a classification of national policy styles that treats the degree of inclusiveness (high vs. low) of a political system as the first dimension and the key actors involved in the process (bureaucrats/experts vs. politicians/public) as the second. The goal of this conceptual modification is to make the concept of policy styles applicable to non‐democratic political systems and to facilitate the observation of variation within both democracies and autocracies as well as to capture democratization or autocratization episodes within the respective political regime types (see Pelke & Croissant, 2021).…”

Conceptual and Measurement Issues in Assessing Democratic Backsliding

“…4. Although we do not pursue the final approach in our study, see Lührmann and Lindberg (2019), Haggard and Kaufman (2021), Pelke and Croissant (2021), and Maerz et al (2023) for examples. 5.…”

Climate Policy Ambition: Exploring A Policy Density Perspective

“…Along these lines, instead of contrasting the climate policy ambition of democracies versus autocracies, it appears promising to cover all types of political system and assess how far this affects policy outputs or policy outcomes (e.g., GHG emissions). In this context, it should be noted that variations are more pronounced among autocratic systems than democratic ones and that autocraticization processes can affect both autocracies and democracies (see Pelke & Croissant, 2021). And what is more, some social movements such as Extinction Rebellion have even called on policymakers in democracies to adopt some more "authoritarian"-style policies such as those that target frequent flyers.…”