Testing policy convergence in authoritarian settings: evidence from post-Soviet autocracies

In this article I examine whether authoritarian regimes tend to converge towards similar levels of welfare efforts. According to major school of thoughts in the policy convergence literature, countries with similar economic conditions and political institutions should convergence towards similar levels of social spending. By making use of the policy convergence literature, I test if these assumptions hold true for similar levels of social spending in post-Soviet autocracies. The empirical analysis rests upon a sample made up of eight post-Soviet electoral autocracies during the period 2000 to 2015. This period has been selected primarily because it is the most recent period for which data on social protection expenditure are available but also because it allows to account for the consequences of the dissolution of the USSR in the social sphere. Overall, the empirical analysis supports the evidence of a convergent path in social expenditures among post-Soviet authoritarian regimes. Thus, the paper contributes to enlarge the applicability of the policy convergence literature to the case of non-democratic regimes and, in particular it sheds lights on the economic performance and institutional settings as main triggers of social policy convergence in post-Soviet autocracies.