Poliitika ja valitsemine digiajastul – Master´s theses

Selle kollektsiooni püsiv URIhttps://hdl.handle.net/10062/82875

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Aid as an authoritarian gift: the associations between the Chinese aid and democracy
(Tartu Ülikool, 2025) Zhang, Yang; Mölder, Martin, juhendaja; Tartu Ülikool. Sotsiaalteaduste valdkond; Tartu Ülikool. Johan Skytte poliitikauuringute instituut
As China’s global economic footprint deepens, growing attention is paid to how its aid and loan programs affect regime trajectories in recipient states. While existing scholarship often speculates that Chinese engagement supports authoritarian durability or undermines democratic institutions, it frequently relies on aggregated aid flows and overlooks variation across regime types and aid modalities. This study addresses that gap by analyzing data from globally harmonized sources, AidData, the China Africa Research Initiative, and Polity V, to assess the relationship between Chinese economic engagement and changes in democratic quality. The findings reveal that, in the African context, higher levels of Chinese aid are consistently associated with increased probabilities of regime autocratization despite volatility detected in the permutation. However, in the global sample, this association is less uniform; interaction models show that hybrid regimes face the greatest risk of autocratization, with even modest increases in aid predicting higher autocratization probabilities. Sectoral disaggregation further refines this pattern: aid directed toward the extractive industries, particularly mining, correlates strongly with autocratization trajectories, whereas aid in transportation sectors is linked to weak democratic improvement, presenting modeling volatility. In addition, the presence of Chinese contract labor exhibits a negative association with autocratization, suggesting a potential, albeit limited, association with democratic resilience. Jointly, these results emphasize that the political effects of Chinese aid are not uniform but instead vary systematically by sector and initial regime type, challenging approaches that treat Chinese aid as politically monolithic.
Corruption, populism, and polarization: unraveling the causes of democratic backsliding in 68 countries
(Tartu Ülikool, 2024) Usmanov, Asilbek; Mölder, Martin, juhendaja; Tartu Ülikool. Sotsiaalteaduste valdkond; Tartu Ülikool. Johan Skytte poliitikauuringute instituut
This thesis examines the dynamics of democratic backsliding, focusing on the potential impacts of affective polarization, populism, and political corruption, with inflation as a control variable. Utilizing three primary datasets: the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) dataset, the V-Dem’s Party Dataset, and the World Bank’s Global Database of Inflation (GDI), the study conducts both univariate and multivariate regression analyses. The findings confirm that affective polarization significantly predicts changes in both electoral and deliberative democracy, supporting the hypothesis that increased polarization can lead to democratic backsliding. However, the relationships between populism and liberal democracy, and political corruption and egalitarian democracy, were not statistically significant at the conventional levels. Despite these limitations, this study contributes to the literature on democratic backsliding by highlighting the potential impact of political corruption, affective polarization, populism, and inflation on various forms of democracy. The findings underscore the complexity of democratic backsliding and the need for further research in this area. As democratic backsliding continues to be a pressing issue in many parts of the world, it is important to understand these dynamics. Future research could benefit from expanding the dataset to include more countries and a longer timeframe. This would increase the number of observations and potentially lead to more robust findings. Additionally, future studies could consider incorporating other variables that might influence democratic backsliding, such as institutional strength, and cultural factors.
Democracy and trends in wealth inequality: a global empirical study
(Tartu Ülikool, 2022) Smith, Joshua J.; Mölder, Martin, juhendaja; Tartu Ülikool. Sotsiaalteaduste valdkond; Tartu Ülikool. Johan Skytte poliitikauuringute instituut
Effective democracy relies on the political equality of individuals, which is in turn influenced by wealth inequality levels. However, within-country wealth inequality has reached extreme levels in the world today and continues to rise. Conclusive information on whether democracies are effectively reducing or limiting wealth inequality as compared to non-democracies is currently lacking. Here I show that generally countries with high levels of democracy are not any more likely to reduce or limit wealth inequality than non-democratic states, using a rigorous methodology and data from 146 countries. Conversely, I also find that two specific aspects related to democracy, strong and independent elected regional government and widespread respect for civil liberties, do function to reduce or limit wealth inequality. My results demonstrate that democracy is in need of certain reforms to both increase political equality and limit wealth inequality. Besides providing empirical support for the practice of federalism as well as policies protecting civil liberties for the disadvantaged, this thesis also examines reasoning for why democracy may not be functioning to reduce or limit wealth inequality, and relevant policy recommendations are highlighted.

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