Misperceptions and Demand for Democracy under Authoritarianism

In this event, Daron Acemoglu will present his timely and thought-provoking paper investigating the persistence of authoritarian regimes, focusing on whether misperceptions, rather than a genuine preference for authoritarianism, help sustain these systems. Drawing on original field and online experiments conducted around Türkiye’s May 2023 elections, he and his co-authors reveal that many citizens, particularly supporters of the incumbent government, systematically underestimate the deterioration of democratic institutions and media freedom, as well as their broader consequences for issues like corruption and disaster response. The study finds that providing accurate information significantly shifts beliefs and voting intentions, particularly among those with stronger initial misperceptions. Acemoglu will discuss why public support for authoritarianism may rest on shaky informational ground and how the findings offer new insight into the potential levers of democratic change.

This event is co-sponsored by the Georgetown University Global Economic Challenges (GEC) Network and the United Programs for Political Economy Research (UPPER) Network.

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Daron Acemoglu is an institute professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), faculty co-director of MIT’s Shaping the Future of Work Initiative, and a research affiliate at MIT's newly established Blueprint Labs. He is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, American Philosophical Society, the British Academy of Sciences, the Econometric Society, and the Society of Labor Economists. He is also a member of the Group of Thirty. Acemoglu is the author of six books, including the New York Times bestseller Why Nations Fail: Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (with James A. Robinson, 2012), Introduction to Modern Economic Growth (2008), and Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity (with Simon Johnson, 2023). His academic work spans political economy, economic development, growth, technological change, inequality, labor economics, and network economics. He has received numerous awards, including the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (2024, with Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson), the John Bates Clark Medal (2005), the Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize (2012), and the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2016). He holds honorary doctorates from institutions such as the University of Utrecht, Boğaziçi University, University of Athens, and London Business School.