Social globalisation and quality of democracy: An analysis for old and young democracies

Abstract

The literature on globalisation and democracy has primarily paid attention to economic integration and its effects on democracies. Systematic empirical evidence on the effects of social globalisation on democracy is absent. This article intends to fill this gap. Social globalisation is disaggregated into interpersonal, information and cultural globalisation. I apply the generalised method of moments estimation and analyse democracies encompassing the periods 1970–1991 and 1991–2017. The results indicate that the democratic qualities affected by social globalisation are freedom of expression, equal access and protection, and the quality of elections. The moderating effect of a given country’s democracy stock has been confirmed across different estimations. However, and especially during the post–Cold War period, younger and older democracies benefit equally from the increased spread of information caused by globalisation with regard to equal access. Equally, both categories experience similar challenges with the rise of interpersonal globalisation in terms of the quality of elections.