In comparative politics, an established finding—that economic development fosters democratic performance—has recently come under challenge. We counter this challenge with a dynamic pooled time series analysis of a major, but neglected data set from 131 nations. The final generalized least squares-autoregressive moving averages estimates (N = 2,096) appear robust and indicate strong economic development effects, dependent in part on the nation's position in the world system. For the first time, rather hard evidence is offered on the causal relationship between economics and democracy. According to Granger tests, economic development “causes” democracy, but democracy does not “cause” economic development. Overall, the various tests would seem to advance sharply the modeling of democratic performance.
Objectives. We analyze the levels of trust and social capital among an understudied group: migrant seasonal farmworkers (MSFW). MSFWs of today are likely to become the \u22Hispanics\u22 of tomorrow, which means that understanding what affects the development of social capital of this group is critical to understanding how these individuals are incorporated—or not—into the U.S. polity. Methods. We utilize logistic regression analysis and ordered logit analysis to analyze a data set of 555 MSFWs and comments from four focus groups in Idaho. Results. We find that MSFWs have lower levels of generalized trust than do Hispanics nationally. We also find that MSFWs have low levels of trust toward whites and Mexican Americans. Conclusions. We argue that an ethnic community’s subgroups must be incorporated into our analysis of social capital, especially when these individuals are likely to become U.S. permanent residents or citizens
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