Information, Democracy, and Autocracy

Economic Transparency and Political (In)Stability

James R Hollyer author B Peter Rosendorff author James Raymond Vreeland author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:27th Sep '18

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

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Information, Democracy, and Autocracy cover

Increasing economic transparency benefits democracy: it helps elections work. Yet under autocracy, transparency contributes to political instability.

Advocates for economic development often call for greater transparency. But what does transparency really mean? What are its consequences? This breakthrough book demonstrates how information impacts major political phenomena, including mass protest, the survival of dictatorships, democratic stability, as well as economic performance. The book introduces a new measure of a specific facet of transparency: the dissemination of economic data. Analysis shows that democracies make economic data more available than do similarly developed autocracies. Transparency attracts investment and makes democracies more resilient to breakdown. But transparency has a dubious consequence under autocracy: political instability. Mass-unrest becomes more likely, and transparency can facilitate democratic transition - but most often a new despotic regime displaces the old. Autocratic leaders may also turn these threats to their advantage, using the risk of mass-unrest that transparency portends to unify the ruling elite. Policy-makers must recognize the trade-offs transparency entails.

'Information, Democracy, and Autocracy provides a novel theoretical approach to leveraging meaningful data out of strategically missing data …' Steven Lloyd Wilson, Perspectives on Politics

ISBN: 9781108420723

Dimensions: 236mm x 158mm x 26mm

Weight: 670g

396 pages