经济危机与周期性政治重组

Economic Crises and Periodic Political Realignments

针对经济危机在不同政体类型国家的差异性影响,作者基于形式模型提出了一个整合性分析框架,用于解释不同政体类型在经济危机冲击下的政治转型规律。通过模型推导经济危机对政体变迁存在条件式影响,可发现资本主导型和政治主导型国家在面临冲击时政治重组的逻辑有所不同,但均出现与现行政体相反的政治转型方向,呈现钟摆式变动的特征。在资本主导型政体下,经济危机促使经济精英加大对民众的利益剥夺,从而推动民众与政治精英建立联盟,使政治—民众转向成为可能;在政治主导型政体下,经济危机促使政治精英加大对经济精英的剥夺,利益受损的经济精英转而与民众结成联盟,这种政治重组将为资本—民众转型提供动力。实证部分采用面板数据进行统计分析,发现初始政体类型会显著调节经济危机对政体造成的影响。作者选取泰国、白俄罗斯、印度和美国四个国家作为极端案例,揭示了政治、经济精英和民众在危机时的微观互动机制,并对未来新的世界政治秩序做出预判。

This article develops a formal model to explain the political transitions of different regimes under the impact of economic crises. It can be deduced from the model that countries respond and evolve in a conditional way when facing major shocks. Under those regimes dominated by capital, economic crises will damage the interests of ordinary people more than other groups, pushing them to align themselves with political elites, thus giving rise to a populist authoritarian shift. Under the regimes dominated by political elites however, economic shocks tend to make economic elites suffer more losses, driving them to establish political coalitions with the masses.Such political realignment would provide impetus and opportunities for a democratic transition. Empirically, the authors conduct statistical analyses based on panel data and find that the previous regime type plays a moderation role in the correlation between economic crises and regime change. Then, four extreme cases are dissected to illustrate the micro mechanisms of interactions between political elites, economic elites, and the masses. This study helps to understand different political reactions of countries confronting the same crisis, such as the economic crisis entailing the COVID-19 pandemic, which may shed light on the new global political order.