Democracy Matters Research Articles

How autocracy impedes de-securitization, or why democracy matters: the case of Nagorno-Karabagh in the eyes of Azerbaijanis

ABSTRACTThis article analyses the democracy/security nexus by looking at how autocratic rule guides popular opinion in what have come to be known as “frozen conflicts”. In tackling the role of democracy in security, we draw on the concepts of “securitization” and “de-securitization”. Based on the studies of Buzan, Waever and Aradau, we extend current approaches to desecuritization by indicating how democratic systems can unleash emancipatory social processes. This helps us understand not only the limited nature of de-securitization by autocrats, but also the impediments that autocratic rule presents to de-securitization from below. Besides direct limits placed on political freedoms, autocratic governments can prevent the liberalization and modernization of views in society through economic control and reproduction of the dominant socio-economic structures. Based on an uncommonly wide range of interviews, this article shows how a broader set of views affects the views on conflict and its resolution.

Development and pollution in the Middle East and North Africa: Democracy matters

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries are among the world’s top emitters of CO2 and SO2 in per capita terms. The objective of this paper is to analyze whether investing in the democratic development of these countries is an effective tool to make the economic development in this region more environmentally compatible. Using panel data on the income-emission-democracy nexus in 17 MENA countries from 1980 to 2005, we find evidence that improvements in the democratic development of the MENA countries help to mitigate environmental problems. Our results clearly show that the quality of democratic institutions has a greater influence on local environmental problems than on global environmental issues in the MENA region.

The economic growth and foreign direct investment nexus: Does democracy matter? Evidence from African countries

This article investigates the impact of democracy on the foreign direct investment (FDI)–economic growth nexus by considering both a country's current and past political regimes. We apply a linear dynamic panel data model to data from 53 African countries over the period 1989–2014. Standard errors of the estimates are Weidmeijer corrected, following an orthogonal deviations transformation. The results show that the direct impact of FDI on growth is positive and significant. Likewise, the stock of democracy plays a positive and significant role in the growth process. However, the positive impact of FDI on growth decreases with the improvement in the historical experience of a country with democracy. These findings imply that with contemporary efforts to expand political rights in Africa, it is critical to identify alternative channels that facilitate the transmission of the flow of FDI into further and sustainable growth.

Why democracy matters: democratic attributes and human well-being

Large disparities exist in the quality of lives among democratic and non-democratic regimes. This paper attempts to explain this variation among democratic regimes by unpacking the concept of democracy and analysing the effect of three core democratic attributes — political representation, citizens’ participation, and electoral competition — on human well-being outcomes. I argue that higher levels of representation, participation, and competition provide incentives for political representatives to perform well in office and enhance the general welfare of the masses. A time-series cross-sectional analysis is used on a global sample of 75 democracies to assess the relationship between the theoretical variables of interest from 1995 to 2013. The findings demonstrate that electoral competition plays an important role in reducing infant mortality within as well as between democratic countries while political representation helps explain disparities in infant mortality between democratic countries. Overall, the paper demonstrates that the role of democratic politics in general extends to the domain of societal well-being.

V-Dem Comparisons and Contrasts with Other Measurement Projects

For policymakers, activists, academics, and citizens around the world the conceptualization and measurement of democracy matters. The needs of democracy promoters and social scientists are convergent. We all need better ways to measure democracy. In the first section of this document we critically review the field of democracy indices. It is important to emphasize that problems identified with extant indices are not easily solved, and some of the issues we raise vis-a-vis other projects might also be raised in the context of the V-Dem project. Measuring an abstract and contested concept such as democracy is hard and some problems of conceptualization and measurement may never be solved definitively. In the second section we discuss in general terms how the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project differs from extant indices and how the novel approach taken by V-Dem might assist the work of activists, professionals, and scholars.

Tourism and economic growth: Does democracy matter?

Tourism studies have shown a growing interest in the relationship between tourism and the economy, with relevant work exploring the causal direction of effects between a country's international tourism presence and its overall economic performance (Schubert et al., 2011; Ivanov and Webster, 2013; Antonakakis et al., 2015). The product of this enquiry is a mosaic of four different interpretations (i.e. tourism-led growth, economy-driven tourism and bidirectional or no causality) that render this area of research inconclusive and still open to discussion. A detailed analysis of these hypotheses is offered by Brida and Pulina (2010) and Chatziantoniou et al. (2013).

A Better Life for All? Democratization and Electrification in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Does democracy affect basic service delivery? If yes, who benefits, and which elements of democracy matter—enfranchisement, the liberalization of political organization, or both? In 1994, 19 million South Africans gained the right to vote. The previously banned African National Congress was elected promising “a better life for all.” Using a difference-in-differences approach, we exploit heterogeneity in the share of newly enfranchised voters across municipalities to evaluate how franchise extension affected household electrification. Our unique data set combines night-light satellite imagery, geo-referenced census data, and municipal election results from the 1990s. We include covariates, run placebo regressions, and examine contiguous census tracts. We find that enfranchisement increased electrification. In parts of the country where municipalities lacked distribution capacity, the national electricity company prioritized core constituencies of the ANC. The effect of democratization on basic services dep...

ORDINAL VERSIONS OF V-DEM’S INDICES: WHEN INTERVAL MEASURES ARE NOT USEFUL FOR CLASSIFICATION, DESCRIPTION, AND SEQUENCING ANALYSIS PURPOSES

In the wake of the Cold War democracy has gained the status of a mantra.1 However, no consensus has emerged about how to conceptualize and measure this key concept. For policymakers, activists, academics, and citizens around the wor ld the conceptualization and measurement of democracy matters. Billions of dollars in foreign aid spent every year for promoting democracy and governance in the developing world are contingent upon judgments about a polity's current status, its recent history, future prospects, and the likely causal effect of particular forms of assistance. A large body of social science work deals with these same issues. The needs of democracy promoters and social scientists are convergent. We all need better ways to measure democracy.The study of democracy and democratization lies at the center of political science and is increasingly important in economics, sociology, and history. In the post-Cold War world, democracy has also become a central foreign policy objective for many countries, and is often a critical condition for the distribution of international development assistance. The transition to democracy and its consolidation remain key issues in global development today. Yet, uncertainty persists over why some countries become and remain democratic and others do not (e.g. Acemoglu and Robinson 2006, Boix 2003, Houle 2009, Inglehart et al. 2005, Lindberg 2009, Lipset 1959, Paxton 2000, Przeworski et al. 2000, Teorell 2010). The recent literature provides a range of specific hypotheses that, while accompanied by relatively sophisticated empirical strategies for testing, reach few firm conclusions.One of the obstacles to advancement in the field of democratization studies is the absence of a wide-ranging database that tracks multifarious aspects of countries' institutional histories. Several democracy-measurement ventures cover only democracies (e.g. Lijphart 1999) or particular regions (e.g. Munck 2009, Lindberg 2006), or just one aspect such as elections (e.g. NELDA). Existing democra cy indic es that seek to measur e democr a cy tend to be problematic in several respects. This includes the BNR index developed by Bernhard, Nordstrom & Reenock (2001); the Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI) directed by the Bertelsmann Stiftung (various years); the Democracy Barometer developed by Wolfgang Merkel & associates (Buhlmann, Merkel, Muller & Wesels 2012); the BMR index developed by Boix, Miller & Rosato (2013), the Contestation and Inclusiveness indices developed by Coppedge, Alvarez, & Maldonado (2008); the Political Rights, Civil Liberty, Nations in Transit, and Countries at the Crossroads indices, all sponsored by Freedom House (freedomhouse.org); the Economist Intelligence Unit (2010) index ( EIU); t he Unif i ed Democracy Scor es (UDS) developed by Pemstein, Meserve, & Melton (2010); the Polity2 index from the Polity IV database (Marshall, Gurr, & Jaggers 2014); the democracy-dictatorship (DD) index develop ed by Ada m Przeworski & collea gues (Alva r ez, C heibub, Limongi, & Przeworski 1996; Cheibub, Gandhi, & Vr eela nd 2010); t he Lexical index of democracy developed by Skaaning, Gerring, & Bartusevicius (2015); the Competition and Participation indices developed by Tatu Vanhanen (2000); and the Voice and Accountability index developed as part of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) (Kaufmann, Kraay, & Mastruzzi 2010).To summarize the issues with this range of alternatives broadly for the sake of brevity: i) they focus primarily on the electoral dimension of democracy; ii) they are comprised of components not measured independently of each other; iii) except for Polity IV, they do not extend back far in time for a global sample of countries; iv) they are not transparent in design and replicable, hence the accuracy of the data is either unknown or unreported; v) they do not address potential problems of measurement error and vi) they cannot make fine distinctions across polities or through time in a reliable fashion (Treier & Jacka mn 2008; P emst ein et al. …

Between Grassroots Protest and Green Politics: The Democratic Potential of the 1970s Antinuclear Activisim

This article narrates the development of the antinuclear movement from the bottom up, showing how local protests initiated changes in Germans' ideas about democracy and public participation, precipitating the Green Party's emergence. The narrative begins with the pre-history of the 1975 occupation of the Wyhl reactor site in Southern Baden. It shows that vintners' concerns about the future of their livelihoods underpinned protests at Wyhl, but argues that the anti-reactor coalition grew in breadth after government officials' perceived misconduct caused local people to connect their agricultural concerns with democracy matters. It then explains how local protests like the Wyhl occupation influenced the formation of the German Green Party in the late 1970s, showing how the sorts of convergences that occurred amidst “single issue” protests like the anti-Wyhl struggle enabled a wide variety of activists to come together in the new party. Thus, the article argues that particular, local concerns initiated a rethinking of participation in electoral politics. Far from fracturing society, these local concerns promoted diverse new coalitions and shaped an inclusive approach to electoral politics.

Does democracy matter? Comparative perspectives on violence and democratic institutions

Comparative perspectives on crime and violence have paid little attention to the institutional context of the polity with few exceptions. Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011) presents an underlying narrative of institutional change and the evolvement of democratic institutions to the secular process of decreasing violence, between as well as within states. Do democracies have comparative advantages in curbing violence? This paper translates Pinker’s diachronic perspective into a synchronic and cross-sectional analysis of violence in contemporary societies between 2005 and 2009. Its largely descriptive exploration ranges from the micro-foundations of democracies to the institutional breakdown in processes of state failure, using different descriptive indicators of institutional patterns as diagnostic tools.

Globalization, democracy, and child health in developing countries

Good health is crucial for human and economic development. In particular poor health in childhood is of utmost concern since it causes irreversible damage and has implications later in life. Recent research suggests globalization is a strong force affecting adult and child health outcomes. Yet, there is much unexplained variation with respect to the globalization effect on child health, in particular in low- and middle-income countries. One factor that could explain such variation across countries is the quality of democracy. Using panel data for 70 developing countries between 1970 and 2009 this paper disentangles the relationship between globalization, democracy, and child health. Specifically the paper examines how globalization and a country's democratic status and historical experience with democracy, respectively, affect infant mortality. In line with previous research, results suggest that globalization reduces infant mortality and that the level of democracy in a country generally improves child health outcomes. Additionally, democracy matters for the size of the globalization effect on child health. If for example Côte d’Ivoire had been a democracy in the 2000–2009 period, this effect would translate into 1200 fewer infant deaths in an average year compared to the situation without democracy. We also find that nutrition is the most important mediator in the relationship. To conclude, globalization and democracy together associate with better child health in developing countries.

Determinants of FDI: Does democracy matter?

Having access to foreign investments allows a country to take advantage of opportunities to which they would otherwise not have access. Many factors interfere with the ability to attract investments in developing countries, but there is lack of consensus on which factors play an unambiguous role. Using different econometric techniques for a data sample of 5 developing countries and the period 1990 to 2012, this study identifies those factors that most explain the determinants of foreign direct investment. Based on results, democracy can positively affect investors’ decisions about where to locate capital. The findings also show that foreign direct investment as a share of GDP, is significantly associated with low corruption, inflation, high openness, literacy rate and infrastructure.

Globalization and Child Health in Developing Countries: The Role of Democracy

Good health is crucial for human and economic development. In particular poor health in childhood seems to be of utmost concern since it causes irreversible damage and have implications later in life. Recent research suggests globalization is a strong force affecting adult and child health outcomes. Yet, there is much unexplained variation with respect to the globalization eect on child health, in particular in low- and middle-income countries. One factor that could explain such variation across countries is the quality of democracy. Using panel data for 70 developing countries between 1970 and 2009 this paper disentangles the relationship between globalization, democracy, and child health. Specically the paper examines how globalization and a country's democratic status and historical experience with democracy, respectively, aect infant mortality. In line with previous economic research, results suggest that globalization reduces infant mortality and that the level of democracy in a country generally improves child health outcomes. We also nd that democracy matters for the size of the globalization eect on child health. If e.g. Cote d'Ivoire was a democracy in the 2000-2009 period, this effect would translate into 1,200 fewer infant deaths in an average year compared to the situation without democracy. (Less)

Lo mayoritario y lo democrático

Hay que recuperar una concepción de democracia militante y tenerla dispuesta para llevarla a la práctica y afrontar los problemas políticos. Para ello es preciso que la democracia sea entendida más como una sustancia (un ideal de igual libertad) que como un mero procedimiento decisorio (regla de la mayoría). Si bien se mira, este método mayoritario deriva de aquella sustancia y sólo se justifica en la medida en que se atenga a ella. Por eso la democracia importa sobre todo como un criterio con que medir el grado de justicia de las decisiones y, sólo después, en razón del modo mayoritario con que se han adoptado. La igualdad política de los ciudadanos se ha de plasmar en sus métodos democráticos, claro está, pero antes todavía en esa misma igualdad alcanzada en sus resultados. De ahí que rechacemos esa habitual confusión entre democracia y mayoritarismo, uno de cuyos máximos representantes sería J. Waldron.

American Federalism: How Well Does It Support Lady Liberty?

Democratic governments can be either national or federal in form. Whether the form of democracy matters, how it matters if, indeed, it does matter, and for whom it might matter are the types of questions this paper explores. Federalism is generally described as a pro-liberty form of government. Yet it is surely reasonable to wonder how the presence of two sources of political power within the same territory can be more favorable to liberty than when there is but a single source. It turns out that the pro-liberty quality of federalism is a possible but not a necessary feature of federalism. This essay explores this two-edged quality of federalism to discern more clearly the relation between federalism and liberty.

Political origins of financial structure

There is growing policy interest in the role of financial structure in promoting development. However, very little is known about how different financial structures emerge and evolve. In this paper we empirically assess the political origins of financial structure. Using difference–in difference estimation and annual data, we study the effects of democratization on financial structure in a sample of 96 countries covering the period 1970–2005. Democratization here corresponds to the event of becoming a democracy. We find that democratization leads to a more market-based financial system. Democratic change could also be incremental rather than a one off. To identify the effect of incremental democratic change on financial structure we estimate a separate model and find that democracy matters. We also find that countries with substantial democratic capital are more likely to have a market-based financial structure. Our main results are robust to a variety of controls, Arellano–Bond GMM estimation, alternative measures of democracy and financial structure, and across different samples.

Natural resources and sub-national economic performance: Does sub-national democracy matter?

The differentiation in the impact of resources on economic growth is often explained by the specifics of institutional factors. The aim of this paper is to investigate how sub-national political differences influence the effect of natural resources on economic growth. Using a dataset of Russian regions, this paper demonstrates that sub-national democratization influences the growth effects of resources and considers possible mechanisms for this influence. The paper finds that in Russia, natural resources are only capable of promoting growth in the regions with non-democratic political systems that, at the same time, have an efficient and non-corrupt bureaucracy.

How well ordinary citizens understand democracy: the case of the South Korean electorate

How do mass citizens understand democracy? Are they capable of distinguishing it from its non-democratic alternatives? Does their understanding about democracy matter? To reveal the contours of cultural democratization in South Korea, this article addresses these questions largely overlooked in earlier survey-based studies. Analyses of the 2010 Korea Barometer survey indicate that all segments of the Korean electorate, including the young and the college-educated, are neither accurately nor fully informed about what distinguishes a democratic regime from its non-democratic alternatives. Moreover, the study provides strong evidence of democratic learning in that an increase in democratic knowledge leads to committed support for democracy. The findings together imply an urgent need to improve the quality of civic education for the development of democratic political culture in Korea and new democracies.

AGENTS OF PEACE IN THEATERS OF WAR: RETHINKING THE ROLE OF MILITARY CHAPLAINS

In an interconnected and interdependent world in which human rights, political democracy, and particular religious loyalties matter profoundly, the role of armies is changing. Increasingly armies are called on to engage in peacekeeping and peacemaking missions. We may be witnessing an emerging worldwide movement to make external, reconciliatory ministry one of the chaplain's proper roles. Chaplains must understand the functions of faith and examine where they place their ultimate loyalty. At the same time, the military itself may be challenged to re-conceptualize its mission in terms of peacemaking.

Why Do Democracies Comply with Human Rights Judgments? A Comparative Analysis of the UK, Ireland and Germany

Recent literature on compliance has proposed different answers to whether being a democracy matters in fulfilling international commitments. A central focus of these studies was whether democratic institutions enhance or hinder compliance. Scholars have studied both the positive effects of democratic accountability and the negative effects of democratic popular pressure on compliance. Different strands of literature suggest an apparent disagreement about whether democracies are more or less likely to comply with human rights commitments and what reasons motivate their compliance. In this paper, we explore the relationship between democratic institutional qualities and human rights commitments, by employing different methods and new data. We study democracy as a dependent variable rather than an independent variable affecting human rights compliance. We submit that democracies have a number of objective institutional properties, but we also emphasise that institutional properties have different prominence in different contexts. We claim that the ideas that states have of their own democracy play an important role in determining the motivations for compliance with human rights commitments. We focus on reasons for democratic compliance with a particularly institutional form of human rights commitment: human rights judgments and rely on rich qualitative data based on elite interviews carried out in Germany, the UK and Ireland.