A regime type is a form of government or a set of rules that are used to run or control activities of a government and its relationship with people in a country or an institution. Different types of regimes are associated with varying quality of life measures be it economic, social or political. Quality of life measure involves social and psychological well-being of people under particular regime (Hood, 2017). The common regime types mostly exercised are dictatorial or autocratic, democratic, and aristocratic. Every type of regime has its own quality of life that it gives to people under its rule from social, political and economic perspective.
In Lecture 07: I outlined a couple of the main quality of life measures with regime type. In 5-10 sentences, explain what the figures show.
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The figures display different quality of life measures depending on the kind of power exercised on people. Miller (2015) noted that democratic form of governance seems to expedite freedom to own a property, allows freedom of expression, freedom of press and civil society championed as self-expression values. It promotes and sustains property rights and allows citizens to grow businesses to become entrepreneurs leading to overall growth of economy. On the contrary democracies create greed and corrupt regime that may not lender economic development thus lowering people’s quality of life. Furthermore, in dictatorship there is limited chance of improved quality of life as authoritarian leaders focus on the few wealthy individuals who placed them in power. The figures also suggest there may be few dictated investments meant to benefit small number of people surrounding the power (Miller, 2015). The quality of life may only favor a particular social class of people who are loyal to the autocratic leader.
Explain whether there are any consistencies with theories regarding the regime type of economic development.
All the regime types of government may have a positive or negative influence on economic development of a country. Democratic regimes may promote economic growth but on the other hand has its own weakness of developing corrupt and greed regime that may lead to economic stagnation (Hood, 2017). It is evident that democracies encourage individuals to invest which automatically leads to economic growth, however it induces overspending and consumption.
In dictatorships where one person controls everything, citizens tend to save more capital and invest it for productive pursuits. Dictators have the ability to control capital investments into certain projects without borrowing opinion which may be advantageous for economic growth. The investments may be lucrative and bring in huge dividends but most of the times projects end up failing to bring returns due to poor implementation. Miller (2015) averred that authoritarian regimes do not guarantee a better quality of life, since dictators tend to represent the interest of their own or the few wealthy people who placed them in power.
The rule of law is also believed to be connected to economic growth but encouraging democracy on assumption that it will facilitate economic growth sounds true but it is false. The economists in a democratic society argue that everyone pays income tax that is meant to distribute the wealth to all population in a democratic regime. Hood (2015) paying tax is important since democracy aims to represent the larger part of the society than authoritarian regimes that may focus on the few wealthy individuals. Representation of the less fortunate in democracies is more compared to autocratic form of government. That makes more capital to be distributed rather than being used for investment purpose thereby dragging economic growth of a country (Miller, 2015). In dictatorial regime there is more investment since funds are directed to the intended purpose of the authoritarian leader without considering the majority.
Democratic regime is forced by people to accomplish some special objectives since it can be voted out of office more frequently compared to authoritarian regime which tends to cling on power irrespective of the outcome (Hood, 2017). Dictators only care about majority when regime change is possible and they are autonomous who act in any way they think that will benefit them. They may decide to invest or not invest depending on whether it is a single person reign. Failure to invest means no economic growth creating an illusion that democratic regime is more suited for economic growth.
References
Hood, S. J. (2017). Political Development and Democratic Theory: Rethinking Comparative Politics: Rethinking Comparative Politics . Routledge.
Miller, M. K. (2015). Democratic pieces: Autocratic elections and democratic development since 1815. British Journal of Political Science , 45 (3), 501-530.
