every 4 years, the US has the opportunity to completely pivot its entire policy stance on a dime. this is more politically costly to do if you’re a long-lasting autocratic leader, because it is embarrassing to contradict your previous policies. I wonder how much of a competitive advantage this is.
Autarchies, including China, seem more likely to reconfigure their entire economic and social systems overnight than democracies like the US, so this seems false.
It’s often very costly to do so—for example, ending the zero covid policy was very politically costly even though it was the right thing to do. Also, most major reconfigurations even for autocratic countries probably mostly happen right after there is a transition of power (for China, Mao is kind of an exception, but thats because he had so much power that it was impossible to challenge his authority even when he messed up).
The closing off of China after/during Tinamen square I don’t think happened after a transition of power, though I could be mis-remembering. See also the one-child policy, which I also don’t think happened during a power transition (allowed for 2 children in 2015, then removed all limits in 2021, while Xi came to power in 2012).
I agree the zero-covid policy change ended up being slow. I don’t know why it was slow though, I know a popular narrative is that the regime didn’t want to lose face, but one fact about China is the reason why many decisions are made is highly obscured. It seems entirely possible to me there were groups (possibly consisting of Xi himself) who believed zero-covid was smart. I don’t know much about this though.
I will also say this is one example of china being abnormally slow of many examples of them being abnormally fast, and I think the abnormally fast examples win out overall.
Mao is kind of an exception, but thats because he had so much power that it was impossible to challenge his authority even when he messed up
Ish? The reason he pursued the cultural revolution was because people were starting to question his power, after the great leap forward, but yeah he could be an outlier. I do think that many autocracies are governed by charismatic & powerful leaders though, so not that much an outlier.
I mean, the proximate cause of the 1989 protests was the death of the quite reformist general secretary Hu Yaobang. The new general secretary, Zhao Ziyang, was very sympathetic towards the protesters and wanted to negotiate with them, but then he lost a power struggle against Li Peng and Deng Xiaoping (who was in semi retirement but still held onto control of the military). Immediately afterwards, he was removed as general secretary and martial law was declared, leading to the massacre.
Having unstable policy making comes with a lot of disadvantages as well as advantages.
For example, imagine a small poor country somewhere with much of the population living in poverty. Oil is discovered, and a giant multinational approaches the government to seek permission to get the oil. The government offers some kind of deal—tax rates, etc. - but the company still isn’t sure. What if the country’s other political party gets in at the next election? If that happened the oil company might have just sunk a lot of money into refinery’s and roads and drills only to see them all taken away by the new government as part of its mission to “make the multinationals pay their share for our people.” Who knows how much they might take?
What can the multinational company do to protect itself? One answer is to try and find a different country where the opposition parties don’t seem likely to do that. However, its even better to find a dictatorship to work with. If people think a government might turn on a dime, then they won’t enter into certain types of deal with it. Not just companies, but also other countries.
So, whenever a government does turn on a dime, it is gaining some amount of reputation for unpredictability/instability, which isn’t a good reputation to have when trying to make agreements in the future.
every 4 years, the US has the opportunity to completely pivot its entire policy stance on a dime. this is more politically costly to do if you’re a long-lasting autocratic leader, because it is embarrassing to contradict your previous policies. I wonder how much of a competitive advantage this is.
Or disadvantage, because it makes it harder to make long-term plans and commitments?
Autarchies, including China, seem more likely to reconfigure their entire economic and social systems overnight than democracies like the US, so this seems false.
It’s often very costly to do so—for example, ending the zero covid policy was very politically costly even though it was the right thing to do. Also, most major reconfigurations even for autocratic countries probably mostly happen right after there is a transition of power (for China, Mao is kind of an exception, but thats because he had so much power that it was impossible to challenge his authority even when he messed up).
The closing off of China after/during Tinamen square I don’t think happened after a transition of power, though I could be mis-remembering. See also the one-child policy, which I also don’t think happened during a power transition (allowed for 2 children in 2015, then removed all limits in 2021, while Xi came to power in 2012).
I agree the zero-covid policy change ended up being slow. I don’t know why it was slow though, I know a popular narrative is that the regime didn’t want to lose face, but one fact about China is the reason why many decisions are made is highly obscured. It seems entirely possible to me there were groups (possibly consisting of Xi himself) who believed zero-covid was smart. I don’t know much about this though.
I will also say this is one example of china being abnormally slow of many examples of them being abnormally fast, and I think the abnormally fast examples win out overall.
Ish? The reason he pursued the cultural revolution was because people were starting to question his power, after the great leap forward, but yeah he could be an outlier. I do think that many autocracies are governed by charismatic & powerful leaders though, so not that much an outlier.
I mean, the proximate cause of the 1989 protests was the death of the quite reformist general secretary Hu Yaobang. The new general secretary, Zhao Ziyang, was very sympathetic towards the protesters and wanted to negotiate with them, but then he lost a power struggle against Li Peng and Deng Xiaoping (who was in semi retirement but still held onto control of the military). Immediately afterwards, he was removed as general secretary and martial law was declared, leading to the massacre.
Having unstable policy making comes with a lot of disadvantages as well as advantages.
For example, imagine a small poor country somewhere with much of the population living in poverty. Oil is discovered, and a giant multinational approaches the government to seek permission to get the oil. The government offers some kind of deal—tax rates, etc. - but the company still isn’t sure. What if the country’s other political party gets in at the next election? If that happened the oil company might have just sunk a lot of money into refinery’s and roads and drills only to see them all taken away by the new government as part of its mission to “make the multinationals pay their share for our people.” Who knows how much they might take?
What can the multinational company do to protect itself? One answer is to try and find a different country where the opposition parties don’t seem likely to do that. However, its even better to find a dictatorship to work with. If people think a government might turn on a dime, then they won’t enter into certain types of deal with it. Not just companies, but also other countries.
So, whenever a government does turn on a dime, it is gaining some amount of reputation for unpredictability/instability, which isn’t a good reputation to have when trying to make agreements in the future.