Populism is no longer considered a disease of the developing world. In recent decades it has spread throughout Europe and North America, while maintaining its grip in its historical stronghold, Latin America. It now represents the biggest threat to the survival of liberal democracy. Unlike...

One decade after the Arab uprisings of 2010/11, the present discussion paper revisits processes of political change in the Middle East and North Africa MENA) with a focus on the question of systemic change. Core questions in this context are: How, among all possible varieties of political...

Die Corona-Maßnahmen der Bundes- und Landesregierungen haben das öffentliche Leben in Deutschland zeitweise massiv beeinträchtigt. Durch das Kontaktverbot wurden die freie Berufsausübung, die Gewerbefreiheit, die Schulpflicht und die Religionsfreiheit vorübergehend eingeschränkt....

Die Corona-Maßnahmen der Bundes- und Landesregierungen haben das öffentliche Leben in Deutschland zeitweise massiv beeinträchtigt. Durch das Kontaktverbot wurden die freie Berufsausübung, die Gewerbefreiheit, die Schulpflicht und die Religionsfreiheit vorübergehend eingeschränkt....

Social science, like all other sciences, is supposed to explore the substance below the surface of things. However, populism discourse in general is stuck on the surface, focusing on style, outlook and appearance.

Coups and regime transitions are events that typically are intended to change the basic institutional framework of a country. Which specific policies change and the consequences of these changes nevertheless remains largely unknown. Change after a coup or transition implies that some form of...

Despite a large consensus among economists on the strong interdependence and synergy between pro-development institutions, how should one understand why Imperial China, with weaker rule of law and property rights, gave the commoners more opportunities to access elite status than Premodern...

I examine whether transitory events can tip the scales against authoritarian regimes and lead to persistent democratization. I think of situations where this is a possibility as democratic tipping points. The transitory events I focus on are rainfall shocks in the most agricultural countries in...

Introduction / Victor C. Shih -- The domestic political implications of economic sanctions : evidence from Iraq under Saddam Hussein / Lisa Blaydes -- Economic shocks and communist survival and collapse / Martin K. Dimitrov -- Of eggs and stones : foreign sanctions and domestic political economy...

"This book describes the importance of finance and real estate for the emergence of authoritarian regimes. Through an ethnographic study of the pseudo-oligarchs, failed European businessmen, frustrated managers, and unpaid workers that populate Macedonia's construction sector, Fabio Mattioli...

Exploiting a novel geo-referenced data set of population diversity across ethnic groups, this research advances the hypothesis and empirically establishes that variation in population diversity across human societies, as determined in the course of the exodus of humans from Africa tens of...

This paper empirically analyzes the influence of rents from natural resources on the composition of government spending and investigates whether the relationship differs between democracies and autocracies. Both panel data and instrumental variable regressions suggest that there is a negative...

Exploiting a novel geo-referenced data set of population diversity across ethnic groups, this research advances the hypothesis and empirically establishes that variation in population diversity across human societies, as determined in the course of the exodus of human from Africa tens of...

This paper analyzes the utilization of repression and democratic institutions by a non-democratic government striving for political power and private rents. We find that economic development has different impacts on policy choices, depending on whether it appears in the form of rises in income...