Institutional design and political legitimacy in autocracy: Cross-national analysis and survey experiments

2020 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17H04779
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (A)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Politics
• Research Institution: Tohoku University
• Principal Investigator: Higashijima Masaaki 東北大学, 情報科学研究科, 准教授 (10756349)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2021-03-31
• Keywords: 多国間統計分析 / サーベイ実験 / 権威主義体制 / 政治体制変動 / カザフスタン / 中央アジア / 政治制度 / 選挙

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This project explored the origins and consequences of autocratic institutions. First, I finished writing a monograph on autocratic elections and made a book contract with the University of Michigan Press in August 2020. Related research was also accepted by Government and Opposition and Japanese Journal of Political Science. Second, I constructed a cross-national dataset on authoritarian political parties while collaborating with the Varieties of Democracy Project. The dataset was published as the V-Party data in October 2020. Finally, I designed a survey experiment in Kazakhstan to investigate how political leadership affects citizens' perceptions toward the extant regime. The survey was completed in March 2021 and presented preliminary results in a workshop.

Free Research Field

比較政治学・政治経済学・中央アジア政治

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

民主制下の政治制度がどのように作動するのかについては多くのことが明らかになってきたが、権威主義下における選挙や議会、政党といった政治制度がどのように構築され、いかなる政治的経済的帰結をもつのかは未だ謎が多い。本研究では、独裁制の政治制度の起源と帰結について様々な分析手法やデータを構築・分析することをつうじて、日本の政策決定や国際政治に大きな影響を及ぼす独裁政治のメカニズムを探求するものである。