Pathways of democratisation to human development in post-communist countries

Abstract

The article investigates the consequences of post‐Cold War regime transitions on human development in the former Soviet bloc. Relying on a mixed‐methods research strategy that combines econometric and qualitative comparative analysis, it proceeds through three consecutive steps. First, there is a discussion of how democratic institutions may solicit governments’ attention toward social issues. Second, the relationship between democratisation and human development in 21 post‐communist countries is tested. Third, democracy in its core attributes is unpacked, and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) is used to identify a few alternative institutional configurations favouring human development. The analysis reveals that not only full democracies, but also some hybrid regimes, have been successful in this task.

Partial democratization and healthcare reforms in a hybrid regime: the case of Georgia

“…While the origins and functioning of post-communist competitive authoritarian regimes have been studied extensively (Bunce and Wolchick, 2008;Way, 2010), little attention has been devoted thus far to questions regarding the welfare implications of partial democratization in this region, if any (but see Cassani et al, 2016). Is partial democratization sufficient to draw governments' attention to the social costs of welfare state restructuring (in terms of citizen accessibility, for instance), or is full democratization necessary?…”

Los métodos mixtos de investigación para el análisis del cambio político en el Norte de África y Oriente Próximo

“…El rastreo de bases de datos de revistas JCR y otras fuentes específicas para publicaciones QCA (COMPASS) revela un incremento del uso de este método en los estudios sobre democratización. En relación con la esfera intrarregional encontramos un considerable número de investigaciones sobre Europa (Berg-Schlosser y De Meur, 1994;Berg-Schlosser y Cronqvist, 2005;Fink-Hafner y Hafner-Fink, 2009;Gherghina, 2009;Skaaning, 2011;Ishiyama y Batta, 2012;Krasnozhon, 2013;Sedelmeier, 2014;Fischer, 2014;Cassani et al, 2016), América (Berntzen, 1993;Pérez-Liñán, 2005;Grassi, 2000Grassi, y 2004Mantilla, 2010;Mainwaring y Pérez-Liñán, 2013), y en menor medida Asia (Gerschewski, 2010;Hao y Gao, 2016), África Subsahariana (Berg-Schlosser, 2008;Ansorg, 2014;Del Biondo, 2015) y Norte de África y Oriente Próximo (Howard, 2010;Mello, 2012Mello, , 2020Bank et al, 2013; Alijla y Aghdam 2017).…”