Why Do Autocrats Disclose? Economic Transparency and Inter-elite Politics in the Shadow of Mass Unrest
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6284241 |
|---|---|
| Authors | James R Hollyer (0000-0001-5896-816X, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA, corresponding author), B Peter Rosendorff (0000-0002-6775-8911, New York University, New York, NY, USA), James Raymond Vreeland (0000-0002-3429-8517, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 63 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 1488-1516 |
| Publication date | 2019-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Conflict Resolution (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-0027 • E-ISSN: 1552-8766 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022002718792602 |
| OpenAlex | W2888573527 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 20 |
| References cited | 57 |
Autocratic governments hold a preference for opacity. Autocracies are less transparent than democracies and a closed informational environment preserves autocratic regimes from mass unrest. Yet, autocracies vary widely in the extent to which they disclose economic information. In this article, we offer an explanation for why some autocrats choose to disclose. We contend that, paradoxically, some autocratic leaders may benefit from increasing the capacity of the populace to mobilize. In so doing, autocratic leaders threaten rival members of the elite, reducing the risk of elite challenges and increasing their freedom of maneuver. We contend that transparency acts as one mechanism toward these ends. We formalize these intuitions and demonstrate empirically that leaders in transparent autocracies enjoy a reduced hazard of removal via coup relative to their opaque counterparts. Personalistic dictators and entrenched autocrats—who suffer the smallest risk of sanctioning by their elites—are particularly unlikely to disclose information
Autocracy · Democracy · Development economics · Economic system · Economics · Elite · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Shadow (psychology · Transparency (behavior · Unrest · Corruption and Economic Development · Culture, Economy, and Development Studies · Law · Political Conflict and Governance · Psychology
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| Unique citing works | 20 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,86 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2026 (8) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 20 |