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Disorder, dictatorship and government effectiveness: cross-national evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2012

Andrew Whitford  and
Soo-Young Lee
Andrew Whitford*
Affiliation:
Department of Public Administration and Policy, University of Georgia, Athens, USA
Soo-Young Lee*
Affiliation:
Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University, Korea
*
professor andrew b. whitford Department of Public Administration and Policy, University of Georgia, 204 Baldwin Hall, Athens, Georgia 30602-1615, USA, Tel: 706 542 2898, Fax: 706 583 0610, Email: aw@uga.edu
assistant professor soo-young lee Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University, 599 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul, Korea 151-742, Tel.: 82 2 880 5575, Fax: 82 2 882 3998, Email: soo3121@gmail.com
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Abstract

Institutional design balances the costs and benefits of dictatorship and disorder. Democracy can be efficient if it improves the performance of government. Yet, sometimes authoritarian governments can be efficient if they reduce disorder. We show that democratisation has a non-linear effect on income-adjusted perceptions of government effectiveness. These findings present a new opportunity to revisit the study of government performance for researchers working in public administration and political science.

Keywords

Democratisationdictatorshipdisordergovernment effectiveness
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Public Policy , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , 06 March 2012 , pp. 5 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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