Searching for necessary conditions of autocratization: A quantitative analysis of the existence of necessary conditions for autocratization in the post Cold War period

Abstract

After a time of the world becoming more and more democratic, in the last few decades a worrying trend of autocratization seems to have set in. This thesis will study the causes of this new wave of autocratization. It does so in a unique way by not just looking at what contributes to autocratization, but by looking for a condition without which this autocratization does simply not exist. It does so by trying to find a necessary condition for the gradual autocratization that is typical of this new (third) wave of autocratization by way of a statistical analysis, based on existing theories. This analysis is executed by a combination of a descriptive analysis of the variables present in autocratization episodes and a cox survival analysis. A strong civil society is found as a necessary condition within the descriptive analysis, however the effect on the hazard of autocratization for this variable is statistically not significant. Thus, in the end, this thesis does not find a statistically significant necessary condition. But it does show that looking further into a strong civil society as a necessary condition for autocratization to occur, might still reveal that as a necessary condition.