Assasination and Democracy
Lance on Feb 18 2008 at 10:41 am | Filed under: Developmental economics, Domestic Politics, Economics, Foreign affairs, Lance's Page, social science
The Bayesian Heresy tipped me to a profile of economist Ben Olken, who has published a couple of papers on the effect of political leaders on economic and political development:
Olken wonders whether economic development and the path to democratization are shaped more by broad historical forces or by the actions of specific leaders—be they democratically elected prime ministers or thuggish authoritarians. With the assistance of his frequent research partner Ben Jones, an economist at Northwestern, Olken has challenged broadly held assumptions by publishing a pair of papers asking how heads of state affect economic outcomes and democracy.
In “Hit or Miss? The Effect of Assassinations on Institutions and War,” Olken and Jones looked at the effects of political assassination, using a strict empirical methodology that takes into account economic conditions at the time of the killing and what Olken calls a “novel data set” of assassination attempts, successful and unsuccessful, between 1875 and 2004.
Olken and Jones discovered that a country was “more likely to see democratization following the assassination of an autocratic leader,” but found no substantial “effect following assassinations—or assassination attempts—on democratic leaders.” They concluded that “on average, successful assassinations of autocrats produce sustained moves toward democracy.” The researchers also found that assassinations have no effect on the inauguration of wars, a result that “suggests that World War I might have begun regardless of whether or not the attempt on the life of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 had succeeded or failed.”
Needless to say that kind of outcome is not likely to comfort those who believe that stability of leaders, negotiation and other foreign policy establishment tropes are the path of wisdom in dealing with autocrats. I find it both oft putting and unsurprising. Please don’t shoot the messenger for inconvenient and unpalatable evidence.
In “Do Leaders Matter? National Leadership and Growth since World War II,” Olken and Jones explored whether “individual political leaders make a difference in economic growth.” This is tricky business for the researcher because, as Olken explains, a country’s economic situation can affect the election of a leader: when the economic outlook is good, for instance, presidents are more likely to be reelected. So Olken and Jones looked at 57 leaders who died in office from accidents or natural causes and “found big changes in growth when autocratic leaders die in office—both positive and negative,” but no substantial change when democratic leaders died in office. “The results suggest,” they write, “that individual leaders can play crucial roles in shaping the growth of nations,” provided they are ruling with minimal or nonexistent checks and balances to their power (think Augusto Pinochet or Robert Mugabe).
I think this dovetails rather well with Tyler Cowens recent piece on the likely economic impact of our next election as well.
Olken has research on many other areas relevant to development which are worth perusing as well, especially on corruption, so read the whole thing.
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