The Two-step Model of Clustered Democratization

  • Does democratization diffuse? For over two decades, numerous studies have asserted that democratization diffuses across countries but recent research has challenged this claim. Most recently, work by Brancati and Lucardi has buttressed this null finding by demonstrating that an oft assumed mechanism for the diffusion of democratization—the diffusion of pro-democracy protests—lacks empirical support. We review this contribution in the context of recent research and pose the question: if democratization does not diffuse, then why does democratization cluster in time and space? The answer, we argue, is that democratization occurs in two steps. First, common shocks, economic or political, lead to regime collapse. Then, diffusion does emerge in a second step: new elites are more likely to install a democracy following a regime collapse if neighboring countries have recently democratized. We present evidence from democratic transitions in 125 autocracies between 1875 and 2014.

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Metadaten
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Author(s):Christian Houle, Mark A. KayserORCiD
Parent Title (English):Journal of Conflict Resolution
Publication year:2019
Publishing Institution:Hertie School
First Page:2421
Last Page:2437
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1177/0022002719875565
Release Date:2020/01/31
Volume:63
Issue:10
Licence of document (German):Metadaten / metadata
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