Democracy and Development is a 20-hour (3 cfu) course taught between April and June. Lectures take place in Via Conservatorio on Wednesdays (room 23) from 8.30 to 10.15.
Across world regions, democratic politics is increasingly being challenged. In many countries, democracy’s capacity to deliver the benefits citizens expect from it is ever more questioned, leading to declining public support and the opening up of new spaces for authoritarian options and practices. Through the lenses of comparative political analysis, the course aims at examining the actual relationship between democracy and development, with a primary focus on developing countries. The starting assumption is that democracy can have implications that go beyond notions of political rights, civil freedoms, equality, justice and the likes. The impact of different political regimes on development outcomes, or their capacity “to deliver”, is thus investigated: Are authoritarian states better than democracies at promoting economic prosperity? Do different political regimes produce distinct effects on state consolidation and domestic political order? Do democracies have an inherent advantage in favouring a country’s socio-economic advances, including poverty reduction and welfare improvements? Examining these issues offers an opportunity to fully assess the social and economic implications of political regimes and, notably, of current democratic backsliding and autocratization trends.
Programme – Topics
- Democracy and democratization
- Defining and measuring democracy
- Autocratization
- The consequences of democracy
- Political regimes and economic growth
- The politics of development in Rwanda and Ghana
- Democracy, famines, food security and poverty
- Democracy and inequality
Required readings, 2025-2026 (valid from June 2026 exam session)
Note: readings in bold are not required for attending students.
Caplan, Bryan, “The myth of the rational voter. Why democracies choose bad policies”, Cato Institute – Policy Analysis, 594, 2007, pp. 1-28
Chemouni, Benjamin – Dye, Barnaby, “The limits of concentrated power: Bureaucratic independence and electricity crises in Rwanda”, African Affairs, 2024 (early view)
Colagrossi, Marco – Rossignoli, Domenico – Maggioni, Mario, “Does democracy cause growth? A meta-analysis (of 2000 regressions)”, European Journal of Political Economy, 61, 2020, pp.1-44
Dorsch, Michael – Maarek, Paul, “Democratization and the conditional dynamics of income distribution”, American Political Science Review, 113(2), 2019, pp. 385–404
Haggard, Stephan – Kaufman, Robert, “The anatomy of democratic backsliding”, Journal of Democracy, 32 (4), 2021, p. 27-41
Harding, Robin, “Microfoundations: Voting for Public Goods in Ghana”, in Harding, Robin, Rural democracy: elections and development in Africa, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2020, pp. 85-112
Kjær, Anne – Therkildsen, Ole, “Elections and landmark policies in Tanzania and Uganda”, Democratization 20, no. 4, 2013, pp. 592–614
Knutsen, Carl Henrik, “A business case for democracy: regime type, growth and growth volatility”, Democratization, 2020, pp. 1505-1524
Krieckhaus, Jonathan, “Democracy and Economic Growth: How Regional Context Influences Regime Effects”, British Journal of Political Science, 36 (2), 2006, pp. 317-340
Ofosu, George, “Do fairer elections increase the responsiveness of politicians?”, American Political Science Review, 2019, 113 (4), pp. 963-979
Rubin, Olivier, “The merits of democracy in famine protection – fact or fallacy?”, European Journal of Development Research, 2009, 21, pp. 699-717
Sen, Amartya, “Freedoms and needs”, New Republic, 1994, pp. 31-38
Slater, Dan, “Can Leviathan Be Democratic? Competitive Elections, Robust Mass Politics and State Infrastructural Power”, Studies in Comparative International Development, 2008, 43, pp. 252-272
Tudor, Maya (2025), “What democracy does … And does not do”, Journal of Democracy, 36(4), pp. 5-19
V-Dem, Democracy Report 2025. 25 Years of Autocratization – Democracy Trumped?, University of Gothenburg, 2025, pp. 1-64