IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zbw/espost/231993.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Economic crisis and democratic breakdown in the interwar years: a reassessment

Author

Listed:
  • Møller, Jørgen
  • Schmotz, Alexander
  • Skaaning, Svend-Erik

Abstract

The ‘Great Recession’ has rekindled discussions about the relationship between economic crisis and democratic breakdown, frequently based on analogies with interwar experiences. However, while the notion that economic crisis in general and the Great Depression in particular caused democratic breakdowns in the interwar years is widespread, most comparative studies of the period between the two world wars have found no independent effect of crisis on democratic breakdown. In this study, we argue that the latter findings are premised on inappropriate standards of assessments and the exclusion of relevant cases. Based on an event history analysis including 33 countries with democratic spells in the interwar years, we find a significant, non-trivial relationship between economic crisis and interwar democratic breakdown. Our results corroborate the notion that economic crisis substantially increases the risk of breakdown in fragile democracies. But we also show that it is not last year’s economic performance that matters but rather longer-term developments.

Suggested Citation

  • Møller, Jørgen & Schmotz, Alexander & Skaaning, Svend-Erik, 2015. "Economic crisis and democratic breakdown in the interwar years: a reassessment," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 40(2), pages 301-318.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:231993
    DOI: 10.12759/hsr.40.2015.2.301-318
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/231993/1/Full-text-article-Moller-et-al-Economic-crisis-and.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.12759/hsr.40.2015.2.301-318?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Milan W. Svolik, 2013. "Learning to Love Democracy: Electoral Accountability and the Success of Democracy," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(3), pages 685-702, July.
    2. Svolik, Milan, 2008. "Authoritarian Reversals and Democratic Consolidation," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 102(2), pages 153-168, May.
    3. Lipset, Seymour Martin, 1959. "Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy1," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(1), pages 69-105, March.
    4. Przeworski,Adam & Alvarez,Michael E. & Cheibub,Jose Antonio & Limongi,Fernando, 2000. "Democracy and Development," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521793797.
    5. Bordo, Michael & James, Harold, 2010. "The Great Depression analogy1," Financial History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 17(2), pages 127-140, October.
    6. de Bromhead, Alan & Eichengreen, Barry & O'Rourke, Kevin H., 2013. "Political Extremism in the 1920s and 1930s: Do German Lessons Generalize?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 73(2), pages 371-406, June.
    7. Gasiorowski, Mark J., 1995. "Economic Crisis and Political Regime Change: An Event History Analysis," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 89(4), pages 882-897, December.
    8. Przeworski,Adam & Alvarez,Michael E. & Cheibub,Jose Antonio & Limongi,Fernando, 2000. "Democracy and Development," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521790321.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Suthan Krishnarajan, 2019. "Crisis? What crisis? Measuring economic crisis in political science," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 53(3), pages 1479-1493, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Boese, Vanessa A. & Edgell, Amanda B. & Hellmeier, Sebastian & Maerz, Seraphine F. & Lindberg, Staffan I., 2021. "How democracies prevail: democratic resilience as a two-stage process," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 28(5), pages 885-907.
    2. Paul J. Burke & Andrew Leigh, 2010. "Do Output Contractions Trigger Democratic Change?," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 124-157, October.
    3. Dmitry Ryvkin & Anastasia Semykina, 2017. "An experimental study of democracy breakdown, income and inequality," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(2), pages 420-447, June.
    4. David Carment & Mark Haichin & Peter Tikuisis, 2017. "Backsliding and reversal: The J-Curve revisited," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2017-170, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Marcus Noland, 2005. "Explaining Middle Eastern Authoritarianism," Working Paper Series WP05-5, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    6. Maria J. Debre, 2022. "Clubs of autocrats: Regional organizations and authoritarian survival," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 485-511, July.
    7. Hayam Kim & Uk Heo, 2018. "International Organizations and Democracy Development: The Indirect Link," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 99(1), pages 423-438, March.
    8. Suthan Krishnarajan, 2019. "Crisis? What crisis? Measuring economic crisis in political science," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 53(3), pages 1479-1493, May.
    9. Daron Acemoglu & Nicolás Ajzenman & Cevat Giray Aksoy & Martin Fiszbein & Carlos A. Molina, 2021. "(Successful) Democracies Breed Their Own Support," NBER Working Papers 29167, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. repec:gig:joupla:v:2:y:2010:i:3:p:129-142 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Rachael Calleja & David Carment & Mark Haichin & Peter Tikuisis, 2017. "Backsliding and reversal: The J-Curve revisited," WIDER Working Paper Series 170, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    12. Joel Guttman & Rafael Reuveny, 2014. "On revolt and endogenous economic policy in autocratic regimes," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 159(1), pages 27-52, April.
    13. Ahmet Faruk Aysan & …mer Faruk Baykal & Marie-Ange Véganzonès–Varoudakis, 2011. "The Effects of Convergence in Governance on Capital Accumulation in the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Countries," Chapters, in: Mehmet Ugur & David Sunderland (ed.), Does Economic Governance Matter?, chapter 6, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    14. Lourdes ROJAS RUBIO, 2022. "Inequality, Corruption and Support for Democracy," THEMA Working Papers 2022-20, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    15. Markus Brückner & Antonio Ciccone, 2011. "Rain and the Democratic Window of Opportunity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(3), pages 923-947, May.
    16. Pettersson, Jan, 2003. "Democracy, Consolidation and Growth," Research Papers in Economics 2002:16, Stockholm University, Department of Economics, revised 15 Dec 2004.
    17. Anke Hoeffler & Mr. Robert H. Bates & Ms. Ghada Fayad, 2012. "Income and Democracy: Lipset's Law Revisited," IMF Working Papers 2012/295, International Monetary Fund.
    18. Welander, Anna & Lyttkens, Carl Hampus & Nilsson, Therese, 2014. "Globalization and Child Health in Developing Countries: The Role of Democracy," Working Paper Series 1016, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    19. Hubert Tworzecki, 2019. "Poland: A Case of Top-Down Polarization," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 681(1), pages 97-119, January.
    20. Papaioannou, Elias & Siourounis, Gregorios, 2008. "Economic and social factors driving the third wave of democratization," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 365-387, September.
    21. Jorge Braga Macedo & Joaquim Oliveira Martins & João Tovar Jalles, 2021. "Globalization, Freedoms and Economic convergence: an empirical exploration of a trivariate relationship using a large panel," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 605-629, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:231993. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.