On Dictatorship, Economic Development and Stability

and those of the countries which did not take off have modified the context and created
a new dimension susceptible to differentiate political regimes. After Lipset (1959) formu-
lated the hypothesis that democracy was related to economic development, the analysis
of political regimes based on the economic performance’s criterion has developed enor-
mously. The increasing availability of data has also encouraged the realization of many
empirical studies but has failed so far to lead to clear-cut conclusions.⁴

Using a data set encompassing the experiences of 135 countries between 1950 and 1990, a
recent work by Przeworski, Alvarez, Cheibub, and Limongi (2000) confirms the existence
of a link between political regimes and economic development, as measured by per capita
income. Almost 80% of their annual observations of regimes are predicted only by using
this indicator. Unfortunately, even though this result is strong, the authors rightly stress
that it is inconclusive about the way the relationship goes. If the political regime were
the cause of economic development, the result would be useful to define a political theory
of economic development. If economic development determined political regime, then it
would deliver an economic theory of political transition (endogenous democratization or
’dictatorization’). The contemporary literature favors the first causality on the basis of
personal beliefs in default of doubtless empirical evidence.⁵

Three other of their results do not provide much help to pick either causality. First, they
confirm a well-known result that, on average, per capita incomes are lower in dictatorships.

⁴See surveys by Sirowy and Inkeles (1990) and Przeworski and Limongi (1993).

⁵Barro (1996) and Boix and Stokes (2003), for example, favor the second causality and focus on
endogenous democratization.

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