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Democracy, Development, and the International System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

CARLES BOIX
CARLES BOIX*
Affiliation:
Princeton University
*
Carles Boix is Robert Garrett Professor of Politics and Public Affairs, Department of Politics and Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 (cboix@princeton.edu).
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Abstract

Resolving a controversy on the relationship of development to democratization, this article expands the time period under study with panel data running from the early nineteenth century (a time where hardly any country was democratic) to the end of the twentieth century, and shows a positive and significant effect of income on the likelihood of democratic transitions and democratic consolidations. The estimations hold after I control for country and time effects and instrument for income. Results reveal that the effect of income varies across income levels and across eras. First, income has a decreasing marginal effect on democratization. In already developed (and democratized) countries, any extra growth has no further effect on the level of democracy. Second, the structure of the international system affects the resources and strategies of pro-authoritarian and pro-democratic factions in client states. The proportion of liberal democracies peaks under international orders governed by democratic hegemons, such as the post–Cold War period, and bottoms out when authoritarian great powers such as the Holy Alliance control the world system.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 105 , Issue 4 , November 2011 , pp. 809 - 828
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2011

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