Are Autocrats More Environment-friendly Than Democrats? Investigating the Impact of the Regime Type on Environmental Targets in Developing Countries

Abstract: The state is likely to play a crucial role in coping with major environmental challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss and the degradation of ecosystems – in both developed and developing countries. Yet, empirics show significant differences in environmental outcomes between countries. This paper analyzes whether differences in reaching environmental goals can be attributed to different types of political regime, different levels of economic development, and different levels of state capacity, using cross-sectional time-series data for 132 countries from 2000 till 2010. As independent variable, we use the dimension Ecosystem Vitality of the 2012 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) in order to approximate a country’s performance in reaching environmental targets. As main explanatory variables, the summary Polity IV score determines the regime type in a given country in a given year, per capita income represents the level of economic development, and ICRG’s bureaucracy quality reflects a state’s capacity. The results show that economic development has a non-linear effect on environmental performance: As an economy develops, environmental targets are less likely reached; after passing a certain threshold, economic development has a positive effect. But neither the regime type nor the state capacity has a statistically significant effect on environmental performance. Contrary to expectations, the effect of economic development does not interact with the regime type or the state capacity.