Social hierarchies exist in democracies as well as in authoritarian societies. However, their nature is different. Democratic hierarchies are built bottom-up through election while autocratic hierarchies are built top-down through domination. Both, however, have power asymmetries between the weaker citizens and the stronger politicians, which are amplified the stronger the hierarchies are. This manuscript introduces a model that combines pro-/anti-social behavior with different degrees of hierarchies. It is argued that this model has the power to categorize countries according to these criteria and indicate when and how societies move between democracy and authoritarianism. Importantly, I illustrate that the balance between power asymmetries and principal-agent chains is key for understanding when and why democracies sometimes transcend into authoritarianism.

The question of how societies move between democracy and authoritarianism is of vital interest in science, as well as in the day-to-day political debate. This article contributes to this debate by exploring which mechanisms potentially encourage societies to move from democracy to authoritarianism. This article is based on the idea of traditional path dependence, tracing back to Arthur and the organizational path dependence theory by Sydow et al. Building on these theories, I examine how the so-called path-creating mechanisms can emerge and influence societies to move from democracy to authoritarianism. I develop two new concepts in this article. First, structural lock-in that describes a society deprived of its capabilities to adapt to the continuously changing environment. Second, efficient statism, describing societies which strive for higher socio-economic efficiency by embracing strong governmental forms and high conformity levels. The empirical cases presented in this article show that the path-creating mechanisms and efficient statism are regularly observable in societies. Such mechanisms put democracy at risk.

In 2015 and 2016, France was hit by some severe terror attacks. Following these attacks, the country experienced increased xenophobia in the form of anti-Muslim actions (anti-social peer punishment), and the French government reacted by declaring a state of emergency and intensifying policing activities such as house searches and police stops. Here, I analyze these reactions and show that intensified policing, even though well intended, can be associated with considerable anti-social effects. Furthermore, I will show that the state of emergency was associated with some dynamics that are worrisome for a democracy. Lastly, I will situate the findings in the conceptual distinction between institutional and peer punishment of behavioral science.

Punishment is crucial to maintain contribution and to prevent defection in societies. Previous research has shown in small groups that cooperation drops (defection rises) and rises (defection drops) immediately when punishment disappears and reappears. I will discuss this effect for large groups (societies), real-world environment in the form of the absence of policing. On the contrary to small group experiments, there are contribution delays and defection delays following punishment disappearance and reappearance. The length of these delays varies and seems to depend on aspects like trust, transparency, media-behavior, or democratic affection. All these aspects have politico-economic implications.