How democracy and authoritarianism impact nations’ QOL and happiness: Applying complexity theory tenets in building and testing case-based models

Abstract

Applying complexity theory tenets in analyzing findings from prior research on the impacts of democracy and authoritarianism on countries’ quality-of-life and happiness inform answering this question accurately. The study here constructs and empirically tests algorithms on how democracy and authoritarianism impact QOL and happiness. The propositions include the following views. First, full democracy (D) is necessary but insufficient in indicating high QOL and high happiness. The research findings in the present study support this first proposition. Second, full authoritarianism is a necessary condition but its insufficient for indicating nations’ outcome conditions of high Gini index (Gini), low ethical behavior (∼E), and low GDPppp (i.e., ∼GDPppp). The findings support a revision to this second proposition: full authoritarianism is sufficient for indicating each of these three outcome conditions. Third, (a) nations having high QOL are high in happiness (H) consistently, (b) even though as variables QOL and H do not exhibit a symmetrical relationship (i.e., some nations having low QOL have high H). This study supports the perspectives that applying complexity theory tenets and asymmetric case-level outcome algorithms are useful for generalizable theory construction, empirical confirmation, and insightful information for enacting national policies that will increase national QOL and happiness.

Keywords

• Authoritarianism
• Complexity
• Democracy
• Ethics
• GDPppp
• Gini