What economic policies are necessary to win popular support, and in turn help support fledgling democracies? Are they necessarily the same as the policies required for tackling difficult issues of economic stabilization and reform? Conversely, what sorts of economic policies are most likely to spark a backlash against young and fragile democratic regimes? Do the leaders of young democracies face trade-offs as they ponder their electoral and economic strategies?
In this Working Paper, Nathan Converse and Ethan Kapstein address these questions and find that deteriorating or stagnant economic performance constitutes a red flag or warning signal that a country is at risk of democratic reversal. They also find considerable variation in economic performance, suggesting that the design of political institutions in new democracies may have a significant influence on the probability of their survival.
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