Coercive Capacity and the Prospects for Democratization

Comparative Politics, Volume 44, No. 2, pp. 151-169, 2012

33 Pages Posted: 1 Jun 2010 Last revised: 24 Jan 2012

See all articles by Michael Albertus

Michael Albertus

University of Chicago - Department of Political Science

Victor A. Menaldo

University of Washington - Department of Political Science; UW Political Economy Forum

Date Written: October 20, 2010

Abstract

How does the strength of a state’s coercive apparatus under autocracy affect the likelihood of democratic transition? While a broad range of literature posits a negative link between repression and democracy, empirical models of the determinants of democratization rarely include measures that capture this relationship. We generate a panel dataset with global scope from 1950-2002 to explicitly empirically assess whether coercive capacity is negatively associated with democracy. We find that increased coercive capacity under autocracy has a strong negative impact on both a country’s level of democracy as well as the likelihood of democratization if the country is autocratic, and that these results are robust to model specification, potential endogeneity, and alternative explanations. The analysis suggests that empirical studies of democratization should include measures of repression to explicitly account for the widely assumed link between coercive capacity and autocracy.

Suggested Citation

Albertus, Michael and Menaldo, Victor A., Coercive Capacity and the Prospects for Democratization (October 20, 2010). Comparative Politics, Volume 44, No. 2, pp. 151-169, 2012, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1618909

Michael Albertus

University of Chicago - Department of Political Science ( email )

Chicago, IL 60637
United States

Victor A. Menaldo (Contact Author)

University of Washington - Department of Political Science ( email )

101 Gowen Hall
Box 353530
Seattle, WA 98195
United States

UW Political Economy Forum ( email )

Seattle, WA 98195
United States

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