Punctuated equilibrium and progressive friction in socialist autocracy, democracy and hybrid regimes

Abstract

The analysis of public policy agendas in comparative politics has been somewhat limited in terms of geography, time frame and political system, with studies on full-blown autocracies and hybrid regimes few and far between. This article addresses this gap by comparing policy dynamics in three Hungarian regimes over 73 years. Besides our theoretical contribution related to policy-making in Socialist autocracy and illiberal democracy, we also test hypotheses related to non-democratic regimes. We find that – similarly to developed democracies – policy agendas in autocracies are mostly stable with occasional but large-scale “punctuations”. Our data also confirms that these punctuations are more pronounced in non-democratic polities. However, based on our results, illiberal political systems, such as the hybrid regime of Viktor Orbán, are difficult to pin down on such a clear-cut continuum between democracy and autocracy as the level of punctuation differs by policy agendas from parliamentary debates to budgets.

Attention, institutional friction, and punctuated equilibrium in China's budget: Changes in social security and employment expenditure

“…Based on the budget data from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, Jones and others (2009) concluded that punctuated equilibrium can be considered as a rule of thumb for a public budget. Budget data from authoritative regimes (including Brazil, Hungary, Turkey, Malta, and Russia) followed PET even before they transformed into democratic institutions (Baumgartner et al, 2017; Rey, 2014; Sebők et al, 2022).…”

“…Some scholars conducted broader comparative studies that focus on different political systems. Sebők and others (2022) compared socialistic authorities, democratic institutions, and hybrid regimes and found that PET is applicable even beyond democracy. Based on the political spectrum, from the least democratic to the most democratic institutions, Jones and others (2019) extracted from previous literature four key factors that may affect punctuations in policy making: friction, incentives to solve problems, centralization, and information.…”

“…Results show that, in democratic regimes, kurtosis values are lower than in other regimes, implying that punctuation intensity is less pronounced in democracies than in authoritarian forms. Sebők and others (2022) calculated progressive friction, including the policy output (budgetary authority and budget outlays) of socialism, democracies, and hybrid regimes. Their results confirmed that the policy agenda in nondemocracies fits PET—and their punctuations are more pronounced.…”