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Where do domestic political institutions come from?

Where do domestic political institutions come from?. READING ASSIGNMENTS:

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Where do domestic political institutions come from?

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  1. Where do domestic political institutions come from? READING ASSIGNMENTS: Przeworski, Adam, Michael Alvarez, José Antonio Cheibub, and Fernando Limongi. 2000. Democracy and Development: Political Regimes and Economic Well-being in the World, 1950-1990. New York: Cambridge University Press. CHAPTER 2 Boix, Carles and Susan C. Stokes. 2003. Endogenous Democratization. World Politics 55 (4): 517-549 Gassebner, Martin, Michael J. Lamla, and James Raymond Vreeland. 2013. Extreme Bounds of Democracy. Journal of Conflict Resolution 57 (2): 171-197.

  2. What causes democracy?

  3. Different stories of democracy: • Culturalist • Economic (emergence vs. survival) • Game theoretic: Credible promise/threat & income distribution • Regional Diffusion

  4. Culturalist • The Civic Culture (Almond & Verba 1963) • Cross-national evidence (Inglehart 1988) • Democracy associated with high levels of interpersonal TRUST • Seligson (2002) shows these correlations are spurious • They disappear when PER CAPITA INCOME is controlled for...

  5. Democracy % of pop. saying “most people can be trusted.”

  6. $6,000 $5,000 $4,000 Democracy $3,000 $2,000 $1,000 % of pop. saying “most people can be trusted.”

  7. Modernization theory • Dates back to Lipset (1959) – Correlation between economic development & democracy • Common interpretation: Development  Democracy • But the DYNAMICS of regime transitions are ignored! • Przeworksi & Limongi (1997) – Modernization: Theories and Facts • Przeworski, Alvarez, Cheibub & Limongi (2000) – Democracy and Development • (This study is concerned with economic growth – drops oil rich countries – return to this with Boix and Stokes!)

  8. Think DYNAMICALLY • Don’t just look at correlations • Consider • Onset • Continuation

  9. Basic Stata commands • regress y x • regress y x if ylag==0 • regress y x if ylag==1

  10. Credible threat & income distribution(Ross 2001, Rosendorff 2001, Boix 2003, Jensen and Wantchekon 2004, Acemoglu & Robinson 2006) • Democracy an elite-question: • Costs of repression (autocracy) • vs. Costs of income redistribution (democracy) • Income distribution obviously matters (higher income inequality makes repression more attract) • Asset specificity – • oil can’t come with you (Middle East, Nigeria) • education can (India, South Africa)

  11. “That minority still controls the police, the army, and the economy. If we lose them, we cannot address the other issues.”

  12. Recall Pevehouse “Hands-tying” story • How do IO’s get elites to acquiesce? • The problem to solve: • Business elites - fear expropriation under a populist leader • How regional organizations solve the problem: • Economic IO's may make credible the commitment to preserve property rights Temptation to  expropriate Populist leader  Regional organizations!

  13. Diffusion – an international story • Pevehouse (2002) mechanism: • Regional international organizations • All (international) politics is local (Gleditsch 2002) • Neighborhood effects

  14. Evidence

  15. A simple guide to How to read basic “regression” results • What is the analysis “explaining”? Dependent variable, usually in the title of the table • What is the unit of analysis? How many observations… of what? (In IO studies, often “country-years”) • What are the independent variables of interest? Main independent variable(s), Control variables • What is the effect of each independent (explanatory) variable? Just ask: Is the “coefficient” positive/negative? • Are the effects statistically significant? • Star-gazing *, **, *** • Is the standard error <1/2 the size of the coefficient? • OR: is the t-stat/z-stat >1.96? • OR: is the p-value<0.05?

  16. Here’s a finding that’s statistically significant in the first model, but NOT ROBUST across the other models.

  17. More meaningful…

  18. Gassebner et al. 2013

  19. How robust? • There are many stories of democracy • Empirical implications  many variables that purportedly explain democracy • Little consensus – different projects use different specifications • We apply EBA – 59 proposed factors (1.7 + 1.4 million regressions) • EBA is a high standard; variables that fail may matter • Some variables, however, do survive. We suggest that these variables may be the most important factors determining democracy.

  20. Data • Przeworski et al. (2000) Democracy indicator: • “Democracy is a system in which incumbents lose elections.” • Chief executive, legislature face “contested” elections • Ex ante uncertainty, Ex post irreversibility, Repeatability • Explanatory variables: In total we employ 59 previously suggested in the literature • Central variable: GDP per capita (M vector) • Measured in purchasing power parity 1995 US$

  21. Results • The most striking of our findings is that MOST of the variables suggested in the literature do NOT survive EBA.

  22. Results – Emergence of DemocracyTransition from Autocracy to Democracy (robust variables) • GDP/capita does not matter for emergence! • GDP growth does matter but negative!! • Past transitions (positive), OECD (positive), Muslim share (negative), Fuel exports (negative)

  23. Results – Survival of Democracy“Transition” from Democracy to Democracy (robust variables) • GDP/capita matters (positive) • Executive is a former military leader (negative) • Neighboring democracies (positive) • Past transitions (negative)

  24. Final model – Do even these variables survive? • Military leader is co-linear with past transitions • GDP/capita, neighboring democracy, past transitions survive, but “neighbor” marginal effect is not significant (the baseline probability of a democratic survival is 98 percent)

  25. Note on theory • Other variables may indeed matter in well-specified models. • But there is great disagreement on theory, and we choose not to take sides in this project. • Methodologically neutral approach gives stark results. • Few robust determinants of Democracy. • Policy-makers may care most about these…

  26. Assignment Propose a factor that influences democratization. Justify why this factor matters with a logical (theoretical) argument. Test your theory using data. You may use as your base-line model specification, the model of Gassebner et al. (2013), a required reading listed below. RECOMMENDED LENGTH: 500 WORDS + 1 page appendix presenting statistical results.  Click here to download the Gassebner et al. (2013) Stata data file and Stata do-file.  (Don't worry. The statistical work will be easier than you think! I'll help you.)

  27. Thank youWE ARE GLOBAL GEORGETOWN!

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