The Effect of Regime Type on Quality of Government

The idea that public institutions are crucial in order to achieve economic development has regained prestige since the emergence of New Institutional Economics and North’s influential work on the topic (1990). Today, there seems to be a general consensus about the positive effects of capable state institutions on growth. While the positive effects of a well-governed state are acknowledged, the debate on the determinants of good governance remains open to question. This study contributes to the above-mentioned debate, by examining the impact of different regime types on quality of government, with a focus on non-democratic countries. Existing literature concerning the causal connection between regime type and quality of government shows contrasting conclusions on the topic and has concentrated more on democracies than autocracies. While the international development community seems to take for granted that democracy and quality of government go hand in hand, in many countries, the process of democratization has not produced the expected beneficial effects. For example, Rothstein compares the divergent developmental trajectories of autocratic Singapore and democratic Jamaica (2010). The former has managed to build up a top class quality of government, while the latter continues to struggle with poor governance (Rothstein, 2010). According to Bäck and Hadenius, the relationship between democratization and quality of government is curvilinear, so that highly autocratic regimes have a better quality of government than moderately democratized regimes, while full democracies have a better quality of government than any other type of regime (2008). Charron and Lapuente suggest that at low levels of economic development autocracies perform better than democracies in terms of quality of government (2009). An opposite view is advocated by Stockemer, whose research points out a negative effect of autocracy on good governance at all levels of economic development (2014). In this research, the causal linkage between regime type and quality of governance is empirically analysed both in non-democratic and democratic regimes, allowing for a comparison between contrasting political settings. Specifically, this study discusses through a quantitative cross-country perspective the impact of regime type on quality of government and the differences between autocracy and democracy as determinants of quality of government.