Autocracies and human development

The idea of a connection between a country’s political institutions and its human development record is not new, but attention has mostly focused on comparing democratic and nondemocratic regimes. The possible implications of the institutional differences characterizing the non-democratic universe have remained largely disregarded. Accordingly, this paper examines how different institutional environments could shape the importance that autocrats attach to improving citizens’ living conditions. The discussion suggests that so-called competitive autocracies, which hold elections and allow for some degree of contestation, face stronger pressures to improve citizen living conditions. Based on an updated version of the V-Dem Regimes of the World index that distinguishes competitive from hegemonic-party electoral autocracies and different forms of closed autocracy, and using data on school enrolment and child mortality for the 1971-2015 period, autocracy’s comparative human development performance is analysed. The main finding is that competitive autocracies outperform other nondemocratic regimes, with the exception of hereditary regimes.