Democracy, Autocracy, and Everything in Between:Understanding How Domestic Institutions Affect Environmental Protection

Jana von Steinjana.vonstein@vuw.ac.nz

Senior Lecturer, Political Science and International RelationsVisiting Scholar, Faculty of Law

Victoria University of Wellington, New ZealandTe Whare Wānanga o te Ūpoko o te Ika a Māui

Please print in a sustainable manner or not at all!

Draft. Comments welcome, but please do not circulate or cite.

1. Introduction

As the ecological challenges of the 21st century broaden and intensify, which domestic

institutions will best enable countries to take decisive environmental action? This question

is all the more urgent in light of recent scientific assessments that climate change is already

exerting serious impacts that will leave some populations with no choice but to adapt (IPCC

2014). Many policymakers and scholars have long believed that “environmental issues are

best handled with participation of all concerned citizens” at the national level, in their

communities, and in judicial and administrative institutions (UN Environment Program

1992). This aligns comfortably with the view that democracy is the best – or in any case the

‘least bad’ – route to socially beneficial policies (Lake and Baum 2001).

Others disagree sharply. Indeed, a number of concerned scientists, policymakers, and

scholars now echo earlier arguments (e.g., Heilbroner 1974; Ophuls 1977) that the gravity

of many environmental problems requires the opposite of democracy. Democracy involves

deliberation, which requires time we no longer have. It also obliges leaders to be

responsive to citizen demands that might undercut environmental objectives. In contrast,

when quick, decisive, and (possibly) unpopular action is needed, autocracy might be the

best answer (Fliegauf and Sanga 2010). Some look to China’s recent climate change policies

– which involve top-down edicts, little consultation, and personal liberties restrictions that

Westerners would unlikely find acceptable – and conclude that such a model might provide

a viable way forward (Gilley 2012).

Is there a ‘democratic advantage’ when it comes to ecological protection, or do

autocracies win out? The answer has profound consequences for our environmental future,

as democracy continues to spread and may one day take hold in major players like China. A

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number of studies have asked this question. Results have been mixed, and more generally,

the existing literature has two chief limitations. First, it typically relies on general measures

of ‘democracy’ (e.g., Marshall and Gurr’s [2014] Polity measure), which makes it difficult to

say which causal process is doing the work. Second, the literature typically divides the

world into two camps – ‘democracies’ and ‘non-democracies’: most of our theory-building

and empirical testing has focused on what distinguishes the two groups from each other.

We have a very limited understanding of how domestic institutions drive ecological

policymaking in the autocratic world (Wurster 2013).

This article aims to overcome these limitations in the literature. I do not neglect

‘democracy’ as a concept or democracies as a group of countries worth looking at. Instead, I

parse out the mechanisms behind the idea that ‘democracy’ matters for environmental

practice. I focus on four core causal processes: free and fair elections, constraints on what

leaders can achieve unilaterally, civil society protection/activity, and whether domestic

institutional structures give a large number of citizens a say in who holds office. These can

help us understand differences between democracies and autocracies. Increasingly (and to

varying degrees), countries within the autocratic world possess some of these features as

well. These institutions can also help explain variation within the autocratic world. I also

explore some institutional features that are unique to autocracies.

I put these ideas to the test by looking at countries’ decisions to establish protected land

areas. I find consistent evidence, among all countries and in analyses of non-democracies

separately, that institutions promoting free and fair elections and a robust civil society

enhance land protection efforts. Institutional structures that give a larger segment of the

population a say in who holds office also typically improve these protected area initiatives.

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The effect of political constraints is more mixed, though always positive. Finally, there is

very little evidence to suggest that different autocratic regime ‘types’ act differently when it

comes to designating protected areas.

[JVS to conference participants: MORE HERE PERHAPS?]

2. ‘Democratic’ Politics and Environmental Protection

Most scholars conceive of environmental protection as a public good or something close

to it (Barrett 2007; Bernauer and Koubi 2009).1 Many studies have shown that democracies

are better at providing public goods (c.f., Lake and Baum 2001). Following this logic, it is

not hard to see why one might expect democratic institutions to enhance environmental

protections. Is there a ‘democratic advantage’ when it comes to environmental protection,

or do autocracies win out?

A number of studies have explored this question. While a few find unequivocal evidence

that democracy reduces pollution and other undesirable environmental behavior

(Bernauer and Koubi 2009; Fliegauf and Sanga 2010), most find democracies to be

somewhat more eco-friendly, but lodge important caveats/qualifications. Some report that

democracies are better at reducing some pollutants/eradicating some bad behaviors but

not others (Bättig and Bernauer 2009; Barrett and Graddy 2000; Wurster 2013; Ward

2006). Others find that democratic institutions lead to eco-improvements only when

certain domestic conditions, like sufficient state capacity, are also present (Cao and Ward

2015; Farzin and Bond 2005; Fredriksson and Wollscheid 2007; Ward 2008; Ward et al.

2014). Overall, the evidence suggests that democratic institutions help promote certain

1 See Dasgupta and Mäler 1994 for a more nuanced and complex understanding.

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kinds of sustainability under certain domestic conditions, but that the record is still rather

mixed.

There are two main limitations in existing research on domestic institutions and

environmental public goods provision. First, while many studies explore the impact of

democratic regime type, they rarely parse out the various potential mechanisms at play.

When it comes to theory-building, this can be problematic because ‘democracy’ often

means different things to different people. Are democracies better (or worse) at

environmental protection because they have free and fair elections? Or is it the limits they

place on individual leaders’ power, the participation they afford to civil society, or the fact

that most of the citizenry has a say in whether a leader stays in power? These are different

mechanisms that, in fact, might pull leaders in different directions. When it comes to

empirical testing, the literature also often falls short. The heavily-used Polity data (Marshall

and Gurr 2014) proved useful in moving a burgeoning literature forward, but they do not

necessarily test the mechanisms scholars intend them to. This article joins other recent

studies that aim to hone in on the specific causal story/ies at play, through the use of more

refined data (c.f. Bernauer and Koubi 2009; Cao and Ward 2015; Wurster 2013).

A second limitation in existing research is that it has typically divided the world into two

camps – ‘democracies’ and ‘non-democracies’ (also called autocracies, authoritarian, etc.).

Most of us now readily acknowledge that this is a gross simplification. Indeed, the reality is

that most countries lie on a spectrum of democratic-/autocraticness. While all non-

democracies have in common a lack of genuinely free/fair elections, they are otherwise a

tremendously diverse group of countries (Geddes 2003; Geddes et al. 2014). Yet, we know

little about why some of them perform so much better than others environmentally. Most

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studies show that economic development is a key driver (Grossman and Krueger 1995),

but it does not tell the whole story (Barrett and Graddy 2000). How, if at all, do domestic

institutions in non-democracies drive ecological policy and practice?

This study does not neglect ‘democracy’ as a concept or democracies as a group of

countries worth analyzing. Instead, I aim to move the literature forward by (1) parsing out

mechanisms that underlie the proposition that democracy ‘matters’ for environmental

practice; (2) embracing a more nuanced view of the ‘autocratic’ world in order to

understand differences within it and differences between it and the ‘democratic’ world2;

and (3) conducting a series of empirical analyses that put these ideas to the test.

What do we mean by ‘democracy?’ A great deal of ink has been spilled on this question.

Rather than engaging too heavily with that debate (which would be impossible to resolve

here), I focus on the mechanisms. In the context of environmental public goods provision,

there are four core mechanisms to emphasize.

a. Elections

At the most basic level, democracies are countries that hold free and fair elections3 in

which (a sizeable portion of) the adult population can participate. The regularity of

competitive elections forces a relatively tight alignment of government policy with citizen

preferences (Fearon 2011): if leaders ignore citizens’ wishes, they will likely find

themselves replaced come election time. In contrast, the theory goes, because it is harder

for citizens who lack the electoral tool to replace leaders, autocratic leaders have less

incentive to be responsive to what their citizens want. In sum, then, countries with

2 I use quotation marks to communicate my view that these are heuristics; that countries generally fall on a spectrum of democratic-/autocracness, with only a portion of them being ‘ideal types.’3 The adjectives are important. Most countries in the world now hold some kind of election, but many do not qualify as democratic.

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elections should have better environmental policies because this mechanism makes leaders

more accountable. In support of this idea, Wurster (2013) finds that countries with

democratic elections are better at promoting ‘weak sustainability’ (use of renewable

energy, nature protection areas, energy efficiency). However, these countries fare no better

on most types of ‘strong sustainability’ (greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption).

The main caveat or critique to raise here is that it depends crucially on what citizens

want (Dai 2005, 2006), a point that Wurster (2013) acknowledges. If citizens do not

support pro-environment policies – perhaps because they favor other goals like putting

food on the table – countries with elections should, in expectation, have less eco-friendly

policies. Consistent with this argument, Farzin and Bond (2006) find that democracy is

associated with more pollution among very poor countries, and less pollution as income

increases. Interestingly, the tipping point is fairly low in the income distribution. Most

research has not acknowledged this highly plausible contingency: elections should only

lead to better environmental practices if citizens favor pro-ecological action. If citizens

favor other goals that work against the environment – and/or the voting system empowers

anti-environmental special interests (Bernauer and Koubi 2009; Midlarsky 1998) – one

would expect elections to lead to worse environmental outcomes.

b. Winning coalition and selectorate

Where the research discussed above focuses on whether leaders are democratically

elected, other work looks at how the size of the group that chooses leaders affects public

goods provision, including environmental protection. Selectorate theory (Bueno de

Mesquita et al. 2005) looks at the size of (1) the group whose support is needed for a leader

to hold office (the winning coalition – W); and (2) the subset of the population that directly

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determines leader selection (the selectorate – S). When W is small in relation to S, leaders

have an incentive to use public resources to provide private goods to supporters. It is

cheaper to the ‘buy off’ the latter than to invest in public welfare for the entire population.

But as W increases in relation to S, the overall bill for private goods increases; at a certain

point, it is more cost-effective to provide the public good to everyone (Bueno de Mesquita

et al. 2005).

Hence, in countries where the winning coalition constitutes a large proportion of the

selectorate, there is greater incentive to invest in public goods such as environmental

protection. Bernauer and Koubi (2008) find support for this idea in the realm of sulfur-

dioxide (SO2) emissions. Cao and Ward (2015) attach important scope conditions, but find

similar results for a subset of countries (those with high capacity and stability). Although

selectorate theory is often used to distinguish democratic from autocratic regimes, it can

also provide insight into differences between autocracies. Although no autocrat ‘rules

alone,’ the group of people he/she must keep happy is much smaller in some autocracies

than others (Böhmelt 2014). In francophone North Africa, for example (before the Arab

Spring), Morocco’s monarchical system faced a smaller winning coalition than did nearby

Tunisia and Algeria’s party-based regimes. If selectorate theory holds in the environmental

arena, the latter should be better at providing sustainability measures than the former.

c. Civil liberties

Democracy typically involves deliberation and free speech/respect for other civil

liberties by providing information, increasing fairness, and giving a voice to the less

powerful (Bernauer et al. 2013; see also Dasgupta and Mäler 1994). Countries without

these mechanisms tend to have low input legitimization, which can lead to a distorted

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sense of reality and might even be used to cover up poor ecological performance (Croissant

and Wurster 2013). The lack of debate and competition also tends to reduce policy

optimization (Wurster 2013) and makes it easy for administrators to lock themselves into

narrow, rigid ways of thinking (Shahar 2015). Citizens, fearful of or prevented from voicing

opinions or providing expertise, do not furnish the kind of honest, critical, feedback that

enables administrators to make informed decisions (Shahar 2015).

Consistent with these general ideas, Barrett and Graddy (2000) find that countries with

civil liberties perform better across several environmental outcomes. These results echo a

study by Torres and Boyce (1998), who find that civil and political liberties reduce

pollution, particularly in poor countries. Torres and Boyce (1998) also find that literacy is

related to lower pollution levels, particularly in poor countries. They suggest that this can

be attributed to the citizens’ improved ability to access information.

Protecting civil liberties has two main (potential) drawbacks when it comes to

environmental action. First, it can be slow. Allowing multiple ‘stakeholders’ to express

views and to be involved in the policy process takes time and coordination. Second,

although civil liberties might in some cases enhance environmental protection, there are

also reasons why they could stall the latter. For instance, several Chinese cities have

decided to combat pollution by simply prohibiting car use once per week (Gilley 2012).

Such policies would likely fall under stiff criticism (and might, as a result, be unworkable)

in much of the developed democratic world.

These are two of the main reasons why some now argue that the climate change crisis

might be easier to solve in places with fewer, rather than more, civil liberties. James

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Lovelock (2010), the first scientist to discover widespread CFC presence in the atmosphere

and father of the Gaia hypothesis, recently argued,

“We’ve become a sort of cheeky, egalitarian world where everyone can have their say … there are certain circumstances – a war is a typical example – where you can’t do that… I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war.”

d. Non-concentration of power

Another well-known component of democracy is non-concentration of power, i.e., the

idea that no single government actor should have authority to unilaterally change policy.

Perhaps the most famous application is veto players theory (Tsebelis 2002). In the

environmental arena, the (now relatively old – c.f., Ophuls 1977) idea that we need more,

not less, concentration of power, has gained notable traction (Beeson 2010). The severity

and intractability of the climate change problem, some argue, require drastic measures that

are impossible in a system that requires the consent of multiple veto players. Hence,

Lovelock (2010) continues:

“We need a more authoritative world… You’ve got to have a few people with authority who you trust who are running it… But it can’t happen in a modern democracy… It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.”

China’s recent successes in curbing greenhouse gas emissions suggest that

concentration of authority can have great eco-benefits: when led by a reasonably

enlightened group, the leader can simply impose politically difficult but important

policies without having to worry about gaining the approval of other government actors

or dealing with backlash from firms or certain segments of civil society (described in c.

above) (Friedman 2009; Shearman and Smith 2007).

The crucial question is whether concentration of authority typically yields such an

‘enlightened authority.’ Shahar (2015) is skeptical: leaders that insulate themselves

from the will of the populace are often infamous for their inability to produce and

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implement policies that actually make the nation better-off. Sowers’s (2007) study of

protected areas in Egypt (particularly in the Sinai region) shows how this concentration

of power led to substantial policy pendulum swings in that country. Indeed, at first, the

concentration of state authority in a few executive institutions facilitated the creation of

very effective protection management schemes because it was easy to ‘embed

autonomy’ in the hands of provincial governors. But the absence of checks and balances

also makes reversal fairly easy: in Egypt, international funds dried up, pro-protection

leadership failed, and tourist interests exploited the void. This led to a rapid

deterioration in protected areas.

There does appear to be some systematic evidence to support the idea that

concentration of power facilitates sustainability action. Madden (2014) finds, among

OECD countries, that veto players reduce the chances that a government passes climate

change legislation. In contrast, Zheng (2013) finds, among European countries, that

states with more veto players have greater environmental policy expenditures. Beyond

Europe, there has been very little investigation of how veto players affect sustainability

measures.

3. ‘Autocratic Politics’ and Environmental Protection

The previous section discussed and scrutinized the main mechanisms behind the notion

that ‘democratic’ institutions and practices affect environmental policy. The basic point was

that we should think of ‘democracy’ as a continuum rather than a dichotomy, exploring the

causal process(es) and acknowledging that the latter can provide insight into the behavior

of all countries. While it is extraordinarily rare, for instance, for states that do not hold

free/fair elections to have a robust, vibrant, completely free-operating civil society, this

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does not mean that civil society is completely barren in all of these countries. (And the

converse might be said for countries that do hold free/fair elections).

As Sowers’s (2007) study of Egypt (even at the height of authoritarianism) shows, local

conservation scientists and other actors were at the forefront of efforts to establish

designated protected areas. Similarly, In Iran, the government has tolerated and even

purposefully stimulated the growth of ‘civil society’ (including green NGOs), so long as the

goals of these groups coincide with government objectives (Doyle and Simpson 2006). Pre-

transition Myanmar stands in contrast. There, green politics was, with a few exceptions, a

form of resistance politics, and the opportunities for civil society to legitimately interact

with government environmental policy were very limited.

In (pre-transition, where applicable) Egypt, Iran, and Myanmar, even if “no public space

exists where opposition, be it green or otherwise, can be legitimately and openly voiced”

(Doyle and Simpson 2006: 752), the contours of civil society vary notably. These

differences are poorly captured by accounts that focus on a simple ‘democracy’/non-

democracy distinction. The same is likely true for the other ‘democratic’ causal

mechanisms as well. Until the Arab Spring, for instance, the constraints placed on the

Egyptian Presidency (by other government actors) were fairly notable (with the exception

of the late 1990s) and even more palpable in Iran. These contrast sharply with pre-

transition Myanmar, where meaningful veto players were non-existent.

Institutions and practices that we often put under the rubric of ‘democracy’ exist to

varying degrees in autocracies as well. But autocracies have their own features, too, and

scholars have only recently begun exploring how these affect their environmental practices

(Böhmelt 2014a; Ward et al. 2014; Wurster 2013). Geddes et al. (2014) provide perhaps

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the most widely used approach for understanding autocratic institutions. At the most

fundamental level, Geddes et al. (2014: 314) are interested in “the rules that identify the

group from which leaders can come and determine who influences leadership choice and

policy.” These rules can be formal and/or informal – the latter are particularly important in

autocracies (though not absent from democracies) because autocracies often obfuscate the

de facto rules that define political options behind a façade of democratic institutions.

In single-party regimes like that of present-day China or Eastern Europe prior to

transition, one party dominates access to office and control over policy (Clark et al. 2013;

Geddes 2003). They generate support and loyalty by providing group-specific benefits that

are tied to the regime’s survival. Faced with crisis, these dictatorships often co-opt minority

dissenters rather than risk destroying the regime through factionalization. This helps

explain why single-party dictatorships typically last so long. The drawback, of course, is

that over time the spoils have to be shared with more and more people. More so than their

counterparts, these autocracies tolerate the expression of grievances to some degree (Clark

et al. 2009).

In military regimes like those found in Myanmar or Argentina pre-transition, officers

decide who will rule and exercise influence on policy. They are the least durable, for they

contain the seeds of their own demise (Geddes 1999): most transitions start because of

factions among the ruling military elite (Geddes et al. 2014), many of whom would prefer

to return to the barracks rather than being forced out (Geddes 2003). The ruling coalition

is typically small in these systems, although this varies over time and from country to

country (Svolik 2009).

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In personalist dictatorships such as the Gaddafi or Marcos regimes, access to office and

its benefits depend heavily on an individual leader’s discretion. The support coalition is

typically small, temporary, and arbitrary. The leader decides who serves, and does so

according to whatever criteria he/she wishes (Svolik 2009). Although parties and

militaries often back the leader, the fear of possible rivals prevents him/her from allowing

these institutions to remain/become well-developed (Geddes 2003). These regimes often

rely on tactics intended to advertise the leader’s abilities and concern for the well-being of

the populace.

Monarchical dictatorships like those in Jordan or Swaziland derive their legitimacy and

maintain their power from immutable family and kin networks. They rely on the support of

the royal family, religious authorities, and/or historical tradition (Clark et al. 2009), which

allow them to persist (on average) longer than all other autocracies, and many

democracies. Because monarchical dictatorships are very closed and rarely topple, we

know less about how they manage internal dissent than we do of other types of autocracies

(Clark et al. 2009).

One of the most obvious ways in which autocratic regime type might affect

environmental sustainability is through the winning coalition’s size and interests (Böhmelt

2014; Cao and Ward 2015; Ward et al. 2014). Among autocracies, single-party regimes

tend to have to please the largest percentage of the population.4 Based on that logic, one

would expect single-party regimes to perform better environmentally. Surprisingly,

however, Ward et al. (2014) find that these regimes have the most SO2 emissions, although

4 Böhmelt (2014) maintains that personalist regimes have the smallest selectorate and winning coalitions, but data from Cao and Ward (2015) and Geddes et al. (2014) show that monarchies have the lowest values, followed next by personalist and then military regimes. What is certain is that single-party regimes have larger W and W/S values than do all other autocracies (p < .001).

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the difference is only significant in comparison to military regimes. As discussed in the

previous section, I readily acknowledge that W and WS vary notably, in both the democratic

and in the autocratic world. But (to the extent possible), we should measure the underlying

concept (Svolik 2012). Data from Cao and Ward (2015) make this straightforward.

Autocratic regime type might also affect sustainability through its impact on leaders’

time horizons. Environmental protection, like retirement/pension plans and many

educational schemes, often involves present-day sacrifices in order to improve future eco-

quality. Leaders are unlikely to make these investments if they do not anticipate being

around in the future. For countries with entrenched democratic institutions, although the

regularity of elections means that leaders risk losing office every few years, “the fact that

the rules of the game stay the same increases their time horizon because they may be re-

elected” (Cao and Ward 2015, 267). This tends to afford leaders breathing space to tackle

environmental problems (Cao and Ward 2015, 395; see also Lake and Baum 2001).

For countries without a relatively easy and regular method of replacing leaders, the

picture is murkier. Insecure autocrats have strong incentives to focus on short-term

economic development to boost security and gain legitimacy (Ward 2008; Wurster 2013),

to the detriment of sustainability. But what about secure autocrats? As Olson’s (1993)

‘stationary bandit’ story reminds us, autocrats might have good reason to invest in long-

term public goods if they expect to be in power for a long time. Following this logic,

monarchies might invest heavily in the eco-future, followed by single-party, personalist,

and lastly military regimes.

But the stationary bandit story only holds if the good’s provision is of some long-term

benefit to leaders. Unlike basic education or healthcare, autocrats’ long-term interest in

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providing citizens with healthy ecosystems is more questionable.5 Perhaps for this reason,

findings have been very mixed. In support of the idea that autocrats with short time-

horizons have no incentive to invest in sustainability, Wurster (2013) finds that military

regimes perform dismally on nature protection and municipal waste production. But he

also finds that monarchies – which are usually extremely long-lived – are also

environmentally irresponsible, particularly in climate emissions and energy consumption.6

And Cao and Ward (2015) find no evidence that regime duration has a meaningful impact

on SO2 and particulates pollution in autocracies.

4. Environmental Protection: The Case of Protected Areas

The arguments developed in this article are broad in the sense that they should apply to

a variety of environmental outcomes. At the same time, each ecological challenge its own

unique attributes, and the data work involved in analyzing the concepts is heavy. To make

the study tractable, I focus on land protection efforts. For centuries, communities,

governments, and other actors have been setting aside areas for the conservation of species

and ecosystems (UNEP/WCPA 2014a). In recent decades, protected areas have been at the

center of conservation initiatives, playing a crucial role in preventing biodiversity loss,

maintaining water supplies and food security, promoting resilience in the face of climate

change, and improving human health (Ervin 2013).

5 There are exceptions. One is environmental problems that endanger citizens’ productivity or some other basis of revenue (e.g., tourism). Another is conservation efforts that yield a net profit in the short and/or long term. 6 The latter finding likely owes in part to these countries’ high petroleum reserves, although Wurster did control for energy imports.

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Various international agreements emphasize the importance of protected areas, but the

most notable of these is the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 and its Aichi

Biodiversity Targets. These stipulate a goal that by 2020:

“At least 17 per cent of terrestrial and inland water [be] conserved through effectively and equitably managed, ecologically representative … systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservations measures” (COP of the Convention on Biological Diversity 2010).

This article explores governments’ efforts at establishing designated nature protection

areas (c.f., Wurster 2013). As of 2014, there were almost 209,500 protected areas covering

almost 20.5 million square miles (33 million km2) – almost 14% of the world’s terrestrial

areas (UNEP/WCPA 2014a, 2014b). However, protection varies substantially from country

to country, as Figure 1 shows. Many of these differences owe to underlying geographic,

economic, and perhaps even cultural conditions. This article argues that beyond these

factors, politics plays an important role as well.

-- Figure 1 about here --

To gauge countries’ efforts at creating designated protected areas, I use data from the

UNEP/WPCA (2014), which indicate the percentage of total land area with protected

status. The data are available from 1990 to 2012, albeit with gaps at times. The Appendix

provides more information on this and all variables, plus any transformations performed.

One important contribution of this article is that it aims to test the underlying causal

mechanisms through which domestic political institutions affect environmental protection.

To gauge the idea that competitive elections affect environmental protection, I use V-Dem’s

(Coppedge et al. 2016) ELECTORAL DEMOCRACY index, which is superior to dichotomous

variables such as Cheibub et al.’s (2009) for two reasons. First, it covers a greater number

of years. Second, it embraces the idea that achievement of the core value of making leaders

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responsive to citizens through electoral competition is continuous rather than an

‘either/or’ (Coppedge et al. 2016). Some countries fit quite obviously on one side of the

spectrum (e.g., Eritrea = .027 in 2012) or the other (e.g. the UK = .959 in 2012). But there is

nothing bimodal about the distribution of this variable. It is adept at gauging differences

within the ‘semi-autocratic/semi-democratic’ world (e.g., Myanmar = .314, and Lebanon

= .613, in 2012) as well.

To gauge the extent to which a single government actor has the ability/authority to

unilaterally change policy, I use Henisz’s (2013) POLITICAL CONSTRAINTS variable, which

measures the feasibility of a policy change, given “the structure of a nation’s political

institutions (the number of veto points) and the preferences of the actors that inhibit them

(the partisan alignment of various veto points and the heterogeneity or homogeneity of the

preferences within each branch)” (Henisz 2013).

Operationalizing CIVIL SOCIETY protection and activity is challenging because there are

many potential mechanisms at play (e.g., protection of free speech and association,

presence of social movements, and so on). Freedom House’s civil liberties index has been

standard fare, but it has fallen under some criticism as being arbitrary. Instead, I use the V-

Dem data, which provide a variety of measures of interest. I employ the CIVIL SOCIETY

participation index, which aims to measure of “a robust civil society … that enjoys

autonomy from the state and in which citizens freely and actively pursue their political and

civic goals” (Coppedge et al. 2016: 57). In robustness checks, I also use two alternate V-

Dem indices – FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION and CORE CIVIL SOCIETY – and the results do not vary

notably.

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Finally, to evaluate the impact of winning coalition size in comparison to selectorate size,

I use Bueno de Mesquita’s well known data (2005), which Cao and Ward (2015) updated.

The chief drawback is that these data are not available beyond 2005, which reduces the

number of data points.

It is useful here to compare each of the four measures. As Table 1 shows, they are all

highly positively correlated (p < .001). There are, of course, quintessential ‘types’ that have

very free/fair elections, many veto players, vibrant civil society, and large winning

coalitions (e.g., Belgium, Switzerland). There are also a number of countries with none of

these attributes (e.g., Libya under Gaddafi; North Korea), and many overall ‘middling’

countries (e.g., Comoros in the mid-1990s; Mexico pre-2000). Nonetheless, even a brief

glance at the data makes clear that they are gauging different concepts, with considerable

variability. Consider some examples.

As one would expect, New Zealand in the early 2000s is one of the most highly-ranked

countries in terms of electoral democracy (~.89). But it ranks very low in terms of political

constraints, alongside a very diverse group of countries ranging from Denmark (which of

course also has very free/fair elections) and Egypt around the same time (which fares

rather poorly on all four variables). This low POLITICAL CONSTRAINTS ranking is sensible

given that New Zealand is unitary, is unicameral, and did not have a Supreme Court until

mid-2004.

Table 1. Correlation of ‘Democracy’ VariablesElectoral Democracy

Political Constraints

Civil Society

WS

Electoral Democracy 1.00Political Constraints .689 1.00Civil Society .827 .607 1.00

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WS

.773 .663 .594 1.00

Morocco is another interesting example. Before adoption of its sixth constitution in

1996, its elections cannot be described as competitive, free, or fair.7 This is reflected in its

low electoral democracy scores (~.19; compare to .93 in its colonial parent, France). Nor

did Moroccan leaders have institutional incentives to consider the needs of the populace

writ large (WS = .25; compare to

WS = 1 in France). Yet, political constraints were

substantially higher in Morocco than in France at the time (.58 vs .23), owing to political

competition between parties and the royal family in the North African country. Moreover,

its civil society activism was much stronger than that of other, similar, countries (c.f., Sater

2007).

These examples are useful because they demonstrate that even if the four core variables

are fairly highly correlated, countries can vary quite notably -- and in ways that seem

consistent with political realities on the ground. (Of course, it is beyond the scope of this

article to examine whether each country’s coding for each of the four variables coincides

with the historical record). The four variables are not simply four slightly different

operationalizations of the same thing.

Turning to the other independent variables, I use the following:

GDP PER CAPITA and GDP PER CAPITA2, controlling for purchasing power parities. They

test the well-known proposition that there is a U-shaped (‘environmental Kuznets

curve’) relationship between wealth and environmental protection (Barrett and Graddy

7 Most agree that the 1996 reforms were a step in the right direction, but there is debate about just how free and fair the new constitution actually made elections. See Storm 2007.

20

2000; Cao and Ward 2015; Farzin and Bond 2006; Torras and Boyce 1998). As citizens

become wealthier, they initially engage in more pollution/environmental destruction.

At a certain point, however, that trend reverses and increases in wealth lead to eco-

improvements because people have disposable income to spend on such ‘luxuries.’

POPULATION DENSITY: countries with little extra space will likely find it difficult to create

designated protection areas.

YEAR: to evaluate whether protection efforts are improving (or worsening) over time,

for reasons not explained by the other variables.

ENVIRONMENT MINISTRY: countries with these institutions are likely to have more political

will to create protected areas, as well as the administrative capacity to do so.

LATITUDE: many of the world’s most diverse ecosystems lie around the equator and/or

in semi-tropical zones. These areas are also particularly at risk for biodiversity loss,

through hunting and forest product exploitation and habitat disruption (Laurance et al.

2012). For these reasons, we might expect countries at lower (absolute) latitudes to be

more heavily involved in creating protected zones.

I include the following variables in robustness checks:

o FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION (Coppedge 2016), which performs in the same manner as

CIVIL SOCIETY INDEX.

o CORE CIVIL SOCIETY (Coppedge 2016), which performs in the same manner as CIVIL

SOCIETY INDEX.

o DURABLE (Marshall and Gurr), following Cao and Ward 2015. This tests the idea

that governments that have been in power longer may have longer time-

horizons, and therefore may invest in public goods. I find no evidence to support

21

this proposition, but this variable’s inclusion does not affect the results. I also

estimate the models with DURABLE and DURABLE2, but the results did not change.

5. Quantitative Analyses

I follow others in using time-series-cross-sectional regression analysis with a lagged

dependent variable (Wurster 2013). I begin by analyzing all countries together. Table 2

reports regression results, but most readers might prefer the graphical representations in

Figure 2. The results clearly show that ELECTORAL DEMOCRACY and CIVIL SOCIETY

PARTICIPATION are associated with significantly higher land protection across the board. A

one-unit increase improvement in a country’s electoral system is associated with a 1%

increase in its land protection; a similar increase in its civil society participation raises land

protection by about the same amount.

-- Table 2 about here or in Appendix? ---- Figure 2 about here --

The impacts of POLITICAL CONSTRAINTS and WS are a bit more complex. As Figure 2 shows,

the former falls just short of statistical significance (p = .125), but the latter’s effects are

more variable. Following Farzin and Bond (2006), I explore the possibility that the impact

of these variables depends on countries’ wealth. The basic idea is that citizens of poor

countries prefer that their governments focus on economic survival and development so

that they can feed and clothe their families – goals that compete with and may cut against

eco-initiatives. The analyses, which are graphed in Figures 3 and 4, provide some evidence

for this claim. For very poor countries– those with GDP per capita below about $1500 –

increases in POLITICAL CONSTRAINTS and Winning Coalition reduce land protection efforts,

although this impact is never statistically distinguishable from zero.

22

The analyses also show that POLITICAL CONSTRAINTS and WS drive up land protection

efforts once countries are sufficiently wealthy. The turning point is at about $8000 (e.g.,

Belize) for POLITICAL CONSTRAINTS and about $6500 (e.g., Guatemala) for WS . There is some

question of whether POLITICAL CONSTRAINTS increase these eco-efforts among the very

wealthy, i.e., those in which the average citizen earns more than $22,000 per year.8 In

contrast, WS drives up land protection more and more as countries become wealthier and

wealthier.

The other variables perform as expected, for the most part. There is firm evidence of an

environmental Kuznets curve, consistent with what others have found (Barrett and Graddy

2000; Cao and Ward 2015; Farzin and Bond 2006; Torras and Boyce 1998). The turning

point is relatively low: at about $6000 per capita, land protection efforts start to improve.

Countries with dense populations and at higher latitudes also have less land protection, as

expected. And these eco-efforts are becoming more common over time. Environment

ministries are also associated with more land protection efforts, but this finding is not

always statistically significant.

In summary, then, the analyses show that (1) free/fair elections and civil society

protections consistently increase land protection efforts; and (2) political constraints

and/or larger winning coalitions drive up land protection efforts once countries are

sufficiently wealthy. These findings are important and show at very least that these causal

variables help us understand differences between countries typically characterized as

‘democracies’ and those normally classified as ‘autocracies.’

8 On the global and historical scale, these countries are small in number, making up about 15% of the dataset.

23

The next question is whether these factors also help us to understand differences within

the autocratic world. I put that question to the test in a series of analyses of autocracies

only (as defined by Geddes et al. 2014). The results appear in Table 3 and Figure 5. They

provide strong evidence that ELECTORAL DEMOCRACY and CIVIL SOCIETY PARTICIPATION

significantly enhance land protection efforts in autocratic states. WS is positive and

significant at p= .064, so we can be reasonably confident that increases in the winning

coalition’s size also drive up autocracies’ land protection initiatives.9 The effect of POLITICAL

CONSTRAINTS is less clear. Although positive, it falls short of standard levels of statistical

significance (p = .138). Among autocracies, there is little evidence of an interaction with

wealth.

-- Table 3 about here or in Appendix? ---- Figure 5 about here --

Overall, there is consistent evidence that ELECTORAL DEMOCRACY10, CIVIL SOCIETY

PARTICIPATION, and WS contribute positively to autocracies’ land protection efforts. The

impact of POLITICAL CONSTRAINTS is more questionable, although in most cases it is probably

positive. I now introduce into the models Geddes et al.’s regime type categories: MILITARY

REGIME, PERSONAL REGIME, and MONARCHY. The excluded category is therefore SINGLE-PARTY

REGIME. The results appear in Table 4, and Figure 6 provides a graphical representation of

the ‘autocratic institutions’ dummy variables.

9 In contrast to the analysis of all countries, I did not find evidence that WS has an interactive relationship

with wealth.10 It is hard to understand how a country can be classified (by Geddes et al. 2014) as an autocracy and still rank highly on a scale of electoral democracy. On average, these countries in fact do not rank highly: their mean electoral democracy value is .298, vs. .738 among countries categorized as democratic. Nonetheless, there are a few countries that have relatively high scores (>.7) while still being classified as autocratic. They are all in the midst of a transition to democracy, but that transition was not successful in all cases.

24

Two things are of note in this set of analyses. First, none of the findings (regarding the

impact of ‘democratic institutions’) changes.11 Second, there is little evidence that land

protection varies by autocratic regime type, all else equal. Single-party regimes appear to

be the most eco-friendly (c.f., Böhmelt 2014a), but in no case is this difference significant

enough to pass standard threshold tests. Overall, the evidence to support the notion that

‘democratic’ institutions matter for land protection is far stronger.

6. Conclusion

JVS to conference participants: rather than write up a conclusion that will no doubt change,

I prefer to present some of the key things I’m thinking about and struggling with. I hope

that is alright!

Is the distinction between ‘democratic’ institutions and ‘autocratic’ institutions (and the

idea that the autocratic world has the former to varying degrees) conceptually useful?

I basically end up fining that ‘democratic’ institutions explain land protection

differences between democracies and autocracies, as well as within the autocratic

world. This feels like a bit of a disappointment for the ‘varieties of autocracy’ idea. Is

that a problem

A related question is whether I should be differentiating the autocratic world in other

ways. The Geddes, Wright, Frantz distinction is but one way of thinking about this, but

I’m not sure that any of the other approaches (Magaloni, Svolik, Weeks) really makes

sense in this context. Thoughts?

Do I need to look to another area, beyond land protection? The quantitative analysis is

already pretty intensive and there are many, many figures. I had a quick crack at oceans

11 Hence I do not include a graphical representation of those variables in Figure 6.

25

protection, but the data are not as straightforward – there are a lot of countries that do

basically no oceans protection.

There isn’t a whole lot of ‘international’ here, which is strange for an IR scholar like

myself. Is this ok? At some point, I would like to explore how treaty ratification affects

these outcomes, but that opens up an entirely new can of statistical worms.

26

Figure 1. Percentage of Land Designated ‘Protected’ as of 2012

Source: UNEP/WPCA 2014b = no data

28

Figure 2. ‘Democratic’ Institutions and Land Protection: All Countries(Visual Representation of Table 2 Results)

Results obtained by interacting POLITICAL CONSTRAINTS with GDP PER CAPITA and including it in model 2 (from Table 1). Results available upon request. There was not substantial evidence that an interaction of POLITICAL CONSTRAINTS with GDP PER CAPITA2 should be in the model.

30

Results obtained by interacting WINNING COALITION/SELECTORATE with GDP PER CAPITA and including this in model 2 (from Table 1). Results available upon request. There was no evidence that an interaction of POLITICAL CONSTRAINTS with GDP PER CAPITA2 should be in the model.

31

Figure 5. ‘Democratic’ Institutions and Land Protection: Autocracies Only(Visual Representation of Table 3 Results)

32

Figure 6. ‘Autocratic’ Institutions and Land Protection(Visual Representation of Table 4 Results)

33

34

Table 2 (Appendix?) ‘Democratic’ Institutions and Land Protection, All CountriesModel 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4

Electoral .175*Democracy (.080)

Political 0.085Constraints (.055)

Civil Society .199*Participation (.085)

Winning Coali- .106tion/Selectorate (.107)

GDP per Capita -.705** -.756** -.788** -.943*(.236) (.265) (.239) (.378)

GDP per Capita2 .042** .044** .046** .055**(.014) (.015) (.014) (.021)

Population -.464* -.072* -.468* -.093Density (.194) (.034) (.194) (.049)

Latitude -.410* -.558** -.364* -.485*(.163) (.192) (.165) (.198)

Environment .050 .105* .052 .148**Ministry (.046) (.048) (.046) (.055)

Year .748** .751** .672** .885**(.245) (.263) (.235) (.294)

Lagged DV .666** .642** .665** .656**(.062) (.064) (.062) (.062)

Constant -12.758* -12.598* -10.948** -14.517*(4.657) (5.050) (4.447) (5.882)

# Observations 1195 1184 1183 904# Countries 145 146 144 150ρ .568 .594 .567 .535Wald χ2 1493.3** 1053.1** 1597.5** 589.54**Overall R2 .703 .827 .863 .822** p < .005. * p < .05. Dependent variable is the percentage of total land area given protected status (using the logistic transformation for proportions). Robust standard errors clustered on country appear in parentheses.

35

Table 3 (Appendix?) ‘Democratic’ Institutions and Land Protection, Autocracies OnlyModel 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4

Electoral .437*Democracy (.187)

Political .188Constraints (.127)

Civil Society .358*Participation (.149)

Winning Coali- .410§

tion/Selectorate (.225)

GDP per Capita -.636 -.401 -.656 -.288(.574) (.340) (.567) (.412)

GDP per Capita2 .036 .022 .038 .013(.035) (.020) (.035) (.024)

Population -.423 .037 -.449* .027Density (.247) (.029) (.229) (.036)

Latitude -.708** -.624** -.596* -.810**(.264) (.230) (.239) (.293)

Environment .092 .112 .099 .113Ministry (.076) (.078) (.081) (.082)

Year 1.483** 1.040* 1.215* 1.620*(.546) (.473) (.503) (.647)

Lagged DV .582*** .612*** .581*** .587***(.122) (.102) (.120) (.108)

Constant -27.919* -19.863* -22.550* -31.950*(11.276) (9.528) (10.577) (12.976)

# Observations 306 321 294 263# Countries 72 76 71 72ρ .297 .189 .294 .147Wald χ2 382.0** 364.7** 381.6** 351.89**Overall R2 .732 .883 .877 .713** p < .005. * p < .05. §p < .10. Dependent variable is the percentage of total land area given protected status (using the logistic transformation for proportions). Robust standard errors clustered on country appear in parentheses.

36

** p < .005. * p < .05. Dependent variable is the percentage of total land area given protected status (using the logistic transformation for proportions). Robust standard errors clustered on country appear in parentheses.

Table 4 (Appendix?) ‘Democratic’ Institutions, AutocraticInstitutions, and Land Protection, Autocracies Only

Model 1 Model 3 Model 2 Model 4Electoral .392*Democracy (.172)

Political .183Constraints (.132)

Civil Society .347*Participation (.147)

Winning Coali- .320tion/Selectorate (.196)

Single-Party omitted omitted omitted omittedRegime category category category category

Military -.059 -.117 -.085 -.021Regime (.096) (.104) (.094) (.116)

Personal -.181 -.173 -.199 -.172Regime (.126) (.119) (.132) (.131)

Monarchy -.048 -.150 -.130 -.072(.228) (.199) (.230) (.196)

GDP per Capita -.726 -.623 -.786 -.410(.595) (.452) (.608) (.493)

GDP per Capita2 .040 .034 .044 .019(.036) (.026) (.037) (.028)

Population -.550* .026 -.541* .030Density (.251) (.038) (.237) (.041)

Latitude -.629** -.544* -.522* -.661*(.243) (.221) (.223) (.262)

Environment .090 .105 .095 .121Ministry (.075) (.078) (.080) (.083)

Year 1.862** 1.371* 1.637* 1.999*(.702) (.613) (.675) (.793)

Lagged DV .578*** .605*** .574*** .582***(.125) (.106) (.124) (.112)

Constant -34.949* -25.433* -30.273* -38.891*(13.420) (13.830) (11.732)

# Observations 306 321 294 263# Countries 72 71 76 72ρ .282 .173 .281 .136Wald χ2 441.7** 372.5** 445.4** 323.1**Overall R2 .742 .731 .745 .718

37

Table XVariable Source NotesPercentage of total land area with protected status.

www.protectedplanet.net Transformed using simply logistic transformation

ln ( y1− y

)

Because dependent variable is a proportion

Democratic elections index

Coppedge et al. 2016:www.v-dem.net

AKA v2x_polyarchy

Political constraint index

Henisz 2013: whartonmgmt.wufoo.com/forms/ political-constraint-index-polcon-dataset/

Civil society index Coppedge et al. 2016:www.v-dem.net

AKA v2x_cspart

WinningcoalitionSelectorate

Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2015; Cao and Ward 2015

GDP per capitaGDP per capita2

Feenstra et al. 2015: www.ggdc.net/pwt

Logged because highly right-skewed

Population density

http://data.worldbank.org

Environment ministry

http://www.isanet.org/Publications/ISQ/Replication-Data

Aklin and Urpelainen 2014

Latitude https://developers.google.com/public-data/docs/ canonical/countries_csv

Absolute value taken

Freedom of expression

Coppedge et al. 2016:www.v-dem.net

(Robustness checks)AKA v2x_freexp

Core civil society Coppedge et al. 2016:www.v-dem.net

(Robustness checks)AKA v2xcs_ccsi

Durable Marshall and Gurr 2014 (Robustness checks)

38

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