Economic Shocks and Authoritarian Stability

Victor C. Shih is Ho Miu Lam Chair and Associate Professor in China and Pacific Relations at the School of Global Policy and Strategy, University of California, San Diego.

“Important theories in the field would lead us to expect that economic shocks might lead authoritarian regimes to democratize. This volume challenges this conventional wisdom, showing that shocks do not change whether autocrats rule, they change how they rule. The volume is persuasive, well-written, and packed with important new insights from the leading scholars in the field.” — Daniel Mattingly, Yale University“With economic growth aiding authoritarian survival, understanding crises becomes fundamental to the study of authoritarian politics. With an impressive set of contributors discussing significant events from around the globe, Economic Shocks and Authoritarian Stability presents a nuanced picture of the relationships between these factors, including financial controls and coalitional politics.” — Jeremy Lee Wallace, Cornell University“These richly detailed and theoretically informed case studies reject the determinism that underpins many arguments about how economic crises affect autocracies. They show that autocrats have many tools to survive sharp economic downturns, but also that economic shocks often fundamentally alter autocracies by compelling the ruler to shift coalitions or tactics to stay in power. A timely and important contribution to the study of autocracy.” — Timothy Frye, Columbia University “Two valuable contributions to our understanding of authoritarian regime survival. First, it combines studies of a wide range of authoritarian regimes to demonstrate the limits of institutions-based theories. Second, by illustrating the complex calculations of specific authoritarian regimes during and after economic shocks using three common indicators, it suggests several venues for further research to better understand authoritarian regime survival more broadly. The chapter authors are all specialists in their country or region of study, and thus provide rich detail.” — Kay Shimizu, University of Pittsburgh