Multiple unstable equilibria in governance

Dictatorships and democracies compete against each other to attract capital and labour, which in general equilibrium spurs autocracies to liberalise, hence promoting growth in those polities. The former is motivated via rent extraction, whilst the latter optimises a preference aggregation rule. In essence, democracies discipline dictatorships via the usual incentives from competition, and vice-versa. One can also think of this as classic technology diffusion, if one considers institutional design as a technology.

Ultimately, this competition is welfare improving for the citizens of both types of polities. Indeed, this is why I'm not dogmatic on whether a nation is democratic or autocratic (mirroring American foreign policy, which despite its rhetoric supports autocracies broadly aligned with its economic and geopolitical interests) - we need both to facilitate this discipline via competition. Overall, I tend to consider democracy as mildly superior from the perspective of maximising growth, yet this claim is not a universal absolute. There exists multiple Pareto optimal equilibria across nations in this respect.

However, it strikes me that there are two broad arguments for holding a normative bias in favour of democracy. From a Schumpeterian perspective, democracies facilitate creative destruction in institutions, in a peaceful manner, and this spurs innovation in governance. Russia is at war with Ukraine in large part because Putin is a relic of the Soviet downfall, so the war reflects his personal grievances from decades past, whilst most others have moved on. The Cultural Revolution maintains a powerful grip on the CCP to this day, as many of its elite (including Xi himself) came of age during that period.

Another (somewhat related) reason to favour democracy is that stable, thereby the more “successful” autocracies, are overwhelmingly gerontocratic. Necessarily, if you cannot depose a ruler, then they will inevitably age in office. Look at the lists of the oldest or longest-serving leaders, and they're overwhelmingly autocrats. Musevini’s latest victory is a prime example of this. An increasing number of autocrats today have been in power for at least three decades. Not only do individuals suffer cognitive decline as they age (as Biden demonstrated), but a culture of gerontocracy can be linked to an increasingly anti-natal culture.