Democracy and Growth in the Twenty-first Century: The Diverging Cases of China and Italy

Is democracy still the best political regime for countries to adapt to economic and technological pressures and increase their level of prosperity? While the West seems to have stagnated in an environment of political mistrust, increasing inequality and low growth, the rise of the East has shown that it may not be liberal democracy that is best at accommodating the social mutations that technologies have triggered.
The cases of China and Italy form the research focus as two extremes in grow...