LIST OF WORKSHOPS

Scientific presentation:

Traditionally public policy studies as a discipline was focusing on the governance of liberal democracies and began to investigate the policy practices of non-democratic regimes only relatively recently (Baumgartner et al., 2017; Sebők and Boda, 2021). The endeavour has been made timely by observable trends of hybridization, democratic backsliding and autocratization in numerous polities across cultural and geographical boundaries. According to major research institutes and think tanks, such as V-Dem and Freedom House, democratic quality has tended to deteriorate in the past decade in both developed and developing countries, with a number of formerly stable liberal democracies autocratizing, some of them turning into outright electoral autocracies. Still, a limited number of countries have managed to improve liberal democratic standards thus limiting the unidirectionality of regime transitions.

The recent interest of policy studies in political systems has mostly produced static comparisons of governance under different regimes. This workshop seeks contributions that focus on the transition between regimes, the dynamics and patterns of change and how these factors are linked to public policies. These linkages may be different in nature as well as direction.

One aspect of the problematique refers to the role of policy problems in triggering regime change. In a recent contribution to the economics of democracy literature, Acemoglu et al. (2021) have argued that exposure to democratic rule enhances support for democratic values as long as democracy delivers: if and when people experience reasonably good economic growth performance, political stability and provision of public goods. With a deteriorating policy performance, conversely, support for democratic governance weakens. The authoritarian turns that have occurred in numerous Latin American countries in past decades, relatedly, have been explained by major failures of democratic governments at providing reasonable public services and reducing corruption (Acemoglu et al. 2013). Ádám (2019), in turn, has argued that Viktor Orbán’s 2010 authoritarian populist takeover and the subsequent consolidation of his regime was principally due to the failure of the previous liberal democratic regime at the sustained delivery of public goods and Orbán’s success at reducing ‘political transaction costs’ through controlling a highly centralized, clientele-based system of redistribution of resources.

These analyses seem to bear some resemblance to those studies in the literature which have adopted outcome-based approaches to the problem of policy-making in regime change. In these studies scholars compare various socio-economic outcomes under different regimes, generally demonstrating the better performance of democracies over autocratic regimes (e.g., Deacon, 2009; Mulligan Casey, 2004). The policy agendas literature has used the concept of policy punctuation in order to assess the quality of policy making in different regimes, arguing that higher punctuations are the sign of poorer policy quality. Baumgartner et al. (2017) analyze trends in budgetary data in four countries (covering Brazil, Malta, Russia and Turkey) in both the democratic and autocratic periods and argue that policy punctuations are larger in authoritarian regimes. This finding is corroborated by many other studies, such as Sebők & Berki (2018).

However, both Acemoglu et al. (2013) and Ádám (2019) point to the dynamizing effect of policy quality on regimes changes and as such relate directly to the topic of the proposed workshop. Conversely, it is equally interesting how policies may help maintain autocratic rule, undermining or reversing democratizing tendencies (e.g. Moon, 2019). A related question is whether transformative policies differ across levels of economic development (see, e.g., Islam, 2005, and Jong-A-Pin & De Haan, 2011).

Outcomes and policy quality are, of course, the final test of assessing the virtues of a given system of governance and as such they are a legitimate focus of analysis. But the processes behind the outcomes are just as interesting. However, the literature on policy procedures under different regimes, let alone the dynamics of the policy-related changes, is much more restricted.

A useful starting point in this respect is offered by Jones et al. (2019) who provide analytical categories in order to explain the differences in policy-making in democratic and authoritarian regimes. They discuss the role of information, incentives and centralization in shaping the environment for public policy decision-making in various regimes. Incentives are set by democratic accountability in a way that motivates decision-makers to address social problems in an effective way. In a democracy politicians are under the constant scrutiny of the citizens who will decide at the end of the electoral cycle whether to trust them for yet another electoral period or to replace them. Therefore, democratic decision-makers have strong incentives to take signals about policy problems seriously, and to process and, possibly, solve them. Although a certain level of friction and policy punctuation is characteristic of the democratic policymaking process as well, these punctuations are more attenuated than in autocracies partly because of these incentives. Autocratic leaders are not subject to popular vote and are, therefore, less motivated to diligently react to the needs, demands and expectations of the people. Consequently, we can assume that policy choices are different in democracies and autocracies. Comparing those differences and capturing both the causes and patterns of the changes would be a pertinent contribution to the thematic of the proposed workshop.

The process of hybridization, or the formation of partly-free regimes constitute a related research question. Sebők (2019) points to a relevant factor in this context: that hybrid regimes often rely on poll-governed populist decision making, focusing on a few, symbolically and politically important issues, while neglecting a large number of other problems. Spectacular, large-scale policies may be undertaken in terms of the former; no action may be initiated in terms of the latter, but if those problems fester, at one point they may also require significant changes. Both logics increase the likelihood of punctuations in hybrid regimes.

Jones et al. (2019) also argue that centralization is another factor which mediates the effect of political regimes on policy dynamics. Generally speaking, more centralized governments cause more severe policy punctuations. Data prove that this is true in democracies, and we may suspect that the stronger centralization of non-democratic regimes may be another factor which leads to higher punctuation. Two mechanisms may be at work: first, as the authors argue, executives like to make changes. Centralization provides a fertile ground for taking major decisions and the power holders often use this opportunity. However, as we discussed above, in autocracies they tend to follow their own agenda instead of the public agenda. Second, political centralization increases friction. The features associated with political centralization – such as the relative weakness of autonomous political actors –, the constrained policy venues as well as the hierarchically organized nature of government make it difficult for policy problems to ascend to the decision-making phase.

How policy centralization is happening during democratic backsliding, which institutions, agents and actors are affected by it has remained largely understudied. Hajnal and Boda (2021) study the dynamics of changes that affect central government bureaucracy and its role in policy making, including structural and informal centralization of decision making.

Finally, Jones and his co-authors argue that the lack of information is also an important feature of the policy process in non-democratic regimes – and also a factor that leads to more severe friction and punctuation. In non-free and partly free regimes the media is not operating unconstrained, the civil society is under control or oppressed, while the political opposition (if any) has limited possibilities to influence the government. These actors and institutions might be considered as parts of the policy capacities of the society (Boda & Patkós, 2018), brokering information between society and the government. If they cannot fulfil their role, the flow of policy-relevant information remaines restricted and cannot easily reach decision-makers. In other words non-democratic regimes are struck by informational disadvantage (Baumgartner et al., 2017). However, again, we do not know much on the dynamics and patterns of changes: How is information restriction realized, which channels and actors are first affected, and how is it reflected in the features of the policy process?

References

Acemoglu, Daron, James A. Robinson & Ragnar Torvik (2013). Why Do Voters Dismantle Checks and Balances?, The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 80, Issue 3, July 2013, Pages 845–875, https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdt007

Acemoglu, Daron, Nicolas Ajzenman, Cevat Giray Aksoy, Martin Fiszbein & Carlos A. Molina (2021). (Successful) democracies breed their own support. NBER Working Paper 29167, https://www.nber.org/papers/w29167

Ádám, Zoltán (2019). Explaining Orbán: A Political Transaction Cost Theory of Authoritarian Populism, Problems of Post-Communism, 66:6, 385-401, DOI: 10.1080/10758216.2019.1643249

Baumgartner, F. R., Carammia, M., Epp, D. A., Noble, B., Rey, B., & Yildirim, T. M. (2017). Budgetary change in authoritarian and democratic regimes. Journal of European Public Policy, 24(6), 792-808.

Deacon, R. T. (2009). Public good provision under dictatorship and democracy. Public Choice, 139(1-2), 241-262.

Hajnal, György & Zsolt Boda (2021). Illiberal Transformation of Government Bureaucracy: A dynamic perspective. The Case of Hungary. Paper prepared for 2021 APSA Annual Meeting, Seattle, September 30 – October 3.

Islam, Muhammed N. (2005) Regime changes, economic policies and the effect of aid on growth, The Journal of Development Studies, 41:8, 1467-1492, DOI: 10.1080/00220380500187828

Jones, B. D., Epp, D. A., & Baumgartner, F. R. (2019). Democracy, Authoritarianism, and Policy Punctuations. International Review of Public Policy, 1(1), 7-26.

Richard Jong-A-Pin, Richard & Jakob De Haan (2011). Political regime change, economic liberalization and growth accelerations. Public Choice, 146: 93–115, DOI: 10.1007/s11127-009-9585-x

Moon, Chungshik (2019). Political institutions and FDI inflows in autocratic countries, Democratization, 26:7, 1256-1277, DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2019.1627520

Mulligan Casey, G. R., Sala-I-Martin, X. (2004). Do democracies have different public policies than nondemocracies? Journal of Economic Perspectives, 18(1), 51-74.

Sebők, M., & Berki, T. (2018). Punctuated equilibrium in democracy and autocracy: an analysis of Hungarian budgeting between 1868 and 2013. European Political Science Review, 10(4), 589-611.

Sebők, Miklós & Zsolt Boda, eds. (2021).Policy Agendas in Autocracy, and Hybrid Regimes – The Case of Hungary. Palgrave Macmillan.

The workshop invites empirical papers with both quantitative and qualitative methods that investigate the nexus between public policies and political regimes’ transitions. Listed below are some questions to illustrate possible topics for papers. These questions are not exhaustive or comprehensive, and we welcome any other lines of investigations that address policy aspects of regimes’ transitions. We particularly welcome papers that address such transitions from a comparative perspective.

-          What are the consequences of regime transitions on the patterns of policy making, including policy formulation, decision making procedures, the involvement of policy actors or the features of policy implementation?

-          Are there any specific public policy patterns enabling the maintenance of particular political regimes? Do, for instance, economic policies of democracies and autocracies substantially differ? If they do, how and why?

-          What are the consequences of regime transitions on policy patterns and particular policy choices? Are there particular policy areas on which specific regimes tend to focus?

-          Are there particular policies and policy failures that contribute to regime changes?

-          What kind of policies are used in legitimizing either autocratic or democratizing tendencies? How do policy makers use these policies to enhance their political cause?

-          Are there differences in usage of transformative policies across varying levels of economic development? Do democratization/autocratization tend to involve different sets of policies at different levels of development?

Abstract :

Traditionally public policy studies as a discipline was focusing on the governance of liberal democracies and began to investigate the policy practices of non-democratic regimes only relatively recently. The workshop seeks to contribute to the scholarship of comparative analysis of public policies in different regimes with a specific focus on the policy-related aspects of regime changes and transitions between political regimes. The endeavour is made timely by the observable trends of hybridization, democratic backsliding and autocratization in many polities around the globe. However, equally interesting are the policy aspects of democratic transitions: whether or not democratization tends to be associated with particular policy patterns, implemented while leaving behind regimes based on the rule of narrow political elites. The workshop seeks to address questions like: What are the consequences of regime transitions on the patterns of policy making and policy choices? Are there policies and policy failures that contribute to regime changes? And, conversely, what kind of policies are used in legitimizing autocratic or democratizing tendencies? The workshop welcomes empirical papers with both quantitative and qualitative methods that investigate the nexus between public policies and political regimes transitions.

• Zoltán ÁDÁM is a political economist with an interest in regime change, democratic backsliding and authoritarian populism. He gained a PhD in economics from Debrecen University upon defending his dissertation on the political economy of the Hungarian post-communist transition. He also holds master degrees in sociology, political science and public administration from ELTE, CEU and Harvard universities, respectively. He joined Corvinus University of Budapest in 2016 as an assistant professor in the Department of Comparative and Institutional Economics, and was promoted to associate professor and head of the Department of Economic Policy and Labour Economics in 2020. In 2019-2020 he was visiting scholar at Harvard’s Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies.

• Zsolt BODA is Research Professor and Director General of the Centre for Social Sciences –  Hungarian Academy of Sciences Centre of Excellence as well as part-time professor of political science at the ELTE University of Budapest. He holds an MA in economics, as well as a PhD and an DSc in political science. His academic work focuses on the problems of governance, public policy, as well as institutional trust, its social roots and its consequences for policy effectiveness. He is the co-leader of the Hungarian Comparative Agendas Project, which is part of the international CAP network. His co-edited volume Policy Agendas in Autocracy, and Hybrid Regimes – The Case of Hungary was published by Palgrave in 2021. He is currently the principal investigator of DEMOS – Democratic efficacy and the varieties of populism in Europe, a consortial H2020 project.