Democratic Transitions

Abstract

Przeworski et al. (2000) challenge the key hypothesis in modernization theory: political regimes do not transition to democracy as per capita incomes rise, they argue. Rather, democratic transitions occur randomly, but once there, countries with higher levels of GDP per capita remain democratic. We retest the modernization hypothesis using new data, new techniques, and a three-way rather than dichotomous classification of regimes. Contrary to Przeworski et al. (2000) we find that the modernization hypothesis stands up well. We also find that partial democracies emerge as among the most important and least understood regime types.

State-sponsored development, oil and democratization

“…And it is often the case, the journey is more important than destination'. 99 Most of the time, scholars tend to ignore the fact that most countries with significant natural endowments came into being in the mid-twentieth century. Given the centuries-long and gradual evolution of the state -society relations in the early-industrialized countries, one should not jump to the conclusion by tying the low records of democracy in these countries to their natural resource (that is, oil) abundance.…”

Weighting Parties and Coalitions: How Coalition Signals Influence Voting Behavior

“…For a similar strategy to represent previous states in a Markov transition as categorical variables, see Epstein et al (2006). The cautious reader will realize that our assumption of iid errors is potentially violated.…”

Aid Is Not Oil: Donor Utility, Heterogeneous Aid, and the Aid-Democratization Relationship

“…Smith E.g. Acemoglu et al 2008;Boix 2003;Dunning 2008;Epstein et al 2006;Goldberg, Mvukiyehe and Wibbels 2008;Haber and Menaldo 2011;Jensen and Wantchekon 2004;Ramsay 2011. 10 Morrison 2009. models the likelihood of revolutionary onsets and the response of the government as a function of "unearned income," which includes revenue from oil as well as foreign aid.…”