Resetting public policy? Democracies, Dictatorships, and Policy Change

Abstract

Despite regime transitions raising expectations of policy change, the empirical evidence linking regime type and policy is not conclusive and transitions from authoritarianism to democracy —and vice versa— often fail to lead to policy change. In part, such inconclusiveness and mixed outcomes reflect the use of varying measures and econometric techniques. However, they also reflect a lack of theoretical clarity regarding the mechanisms that link regime type and policy and how they operate in specific contexts. I claim that the heterogeneous effect of regime type changes on policy depends on 1) how the space for contestation changes with a given regime transition; and 2) how visible a policy is – or becomes. The combination of these two factors determines which mechanisms linking regime type to policy are likely to get triggered and affect the evolution of policy, as well as how that happens.

I support these claims by an in-depth comparative historical analysis of the evolution of housing and financial policy across regime types in Argentina and Brazil since the 1960s. Using extensive archival resources, public records, historical media, and interviews with key actors, I study policymaking across authoritarian and democratic regimes that differed in terms of their space for contestation, analyzing the mechanisms through which changes in such space affect policy areas with different levels of visibility.

I advance a nuanced understanding of the relationship between regime type and policy and, especially, of the conditions and ways in which policy change takes place —or not— following a change in regime type. I contribute to our empirical knowledge of policymaking under authoritarian regimes and to our theoretical understanding of how, and under which conditions, these different causal mechanisms operate. Such understanding is necessary to refine our theoretical expectations and articulate our empirical findings. It also helps us in implementing desired policies, identifying the potential policy threats of democratic backsliding, and recognizing the potentials and limits of democratization. Such recognition will enable us to promote the achievement of those potentials and to value the benefits democracy brings, even if they do not include all our ideal policy outputs.