Trade policy under dictatorship and democratization

Kishore Gawande and Ben Zissimos

Chapter 45 in Elgar Encyclopedia of International Trade, 2026, pp 232-236 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This entry reviews research on how, and under what circumstances, dictators use international trade policy to maintain political control, focusing on the framework introduced by Zissimos (2017). The first key insight is that democratization will only go hand in hand with greater economic efficiency if the ruling elite own the factor used intensively in the good for which the country has a comparative disadvantage. The second is that the elite may be able to use trade policy strategically to respond to world price shocks in ways that preserve their grip on power. The third is that the logic of political survival is more general than the specific framework described, raising the question of why a dictatorship would use trade policy when other, more efficient, instruments of redistribution exist in principle. The discussion concludes by identifying directions for future research and situating these insights within the broader literature on authoritarian control.

Keywords: Dictatorship; Political institutions; Political survival; Redistributive fiscal capacity; Trade policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035327492
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