Chapter 6 PT. 2

• International constraints examples

  Soviet Union, US
• Immobile capital assets examples

  Oil (resource curse)
• The Survival Story: Rebuttal

  Omitted variables: Prezeworski and Limongi's critique

  • fail to consider variables that might stall democratization

  i.e. immobile capital assets and International constraints
• Prezeworski and Limongi's sample selection error

  starts in 1950 - but:

  -Distribution of regime was not random

  -Already highly correlated with per capita income

  -Growth patterns are not randomly distributed either

  -Result is a skewed sample of regimes

  - i.e. Most rich countries already are democracies by 1950

  -We do not see how those countries developed
• The Survival Story: Rebuttal

  sample selection

  -Political data we see in the world cannot be assumed to be randomly distributed

  -History helps us understand how those countries developed
• The Survival Story: Rebuttal

  Dwindling numbers

  -The number of regimes in the sample above or below this income threshold matter

  -At high income levels: there are few dictatorship, and development has largely done its work
• The Survival Story: Rebuttal

  Boix & Stoke

  1. Dwindling numbers

  2. Sample Selection

  3. Omitted Variables
• The Survival Story: Evidence-

  Once GDP/Capita is above a certain threshold transition of any kind (to or from democracy) is tiny

  • Meaning if the country is rich and a democracy, democracy will survive
  • No democratic regime has failed
• The Survival Story: Evidence-

  Below GDP/capitatransitions increase


  -Probability of regime transition of any kind was large and increase with negative economic shocks

  -Probability of democratic (and regime) collapse at t contingent on democratic (and regime) collapse at t-1

  -i.e. Instability begets instability
• The Survival Story: Microfoundations

  Why might economic development/ high per capita income help democratic survival?NOT EMERGENCE


  Coin flip

  -poor country's life cannot get worse, so they take the gamble

  -rich country has more to lose, the gamble is either maintaining or getting worse

  Conclusion: Under good economic conditions, citizens are unwilling to gamble on regime change: They have much to lose and little to gain
• Survival Story: Macrofoundations

  Argues: Emergence of democracy be unrelated to economic development:

  -Dictatorship can die for all sorts of reasons:

  -Dictator could die (Franco)

  -Loss of a war leads to regime change (Argentina and Falklands War)

  -Foreign pressure or invasion (Iraq War)
• Survival story

  Predicts that democracy is more likely to survive as countries develop and become richer, but it is not more likely to emerge
• Classical modernization theory

  Predicts that democracy is more likely to emerge and survive as countries develop and become richer
• What did Przeworski & Limongi's "Survival" Story argue

  data are consistent with two different stories linking income and democracy

  -classical modernization theory

  -survival story
• Lipset's evidence was correlational because...

  It did not establish a casual relationship between economic growth and democracy and it's survival
• Lipset argued that as countries develop economically, they are...

  -More likely to become democratic

  -More likely to remain democratic
• Age of mass consumption

  Disposable income and sophisticated consumer goods
• Drive to maturity

  Transportation networks and public goods
• Take off

  Urbanization and early industrialization

  -i.e. Water mills & steam engines

  Drive to maturity
• Preconditions for take-off

  Fixed-field agriculture

  -Property, social hierarchy (proto-state)
• Traditional society

  Subsistence hunter-gatherer
• what are the historical stages of economic development

  1. Traditional society

  2. Preconditions for take-off

  3. Take off

  4. Drive to maturity

  5. Age of mass consumption
• what does Modernization Theory argue?

  all societies pass through the same historical stages of economic development
• What paradigm links most economic explanations for democracy?

  Modernization theory
• Foreign Aid and Democracy

  1. Can increase the autonomy of recipient governments from the demands of their citizens

  2. Makes governments more dependent on their foreign aid donors

  3. Promotes democratization under demanding conditions

  -Recipient country is dependent of foreign aid
• Emergence of democracy (3 factors)

  1. Increased income (GDP per capita) makes democratic transitions more likely

  2. Increased economic growth makes democratic transitions less likely

  3. Oil production makes democratic transitions less likely
• Standard error

  Indicates if there is lot of variation
• negative coefficient


  relationship travels is opposite directions
• positive coefficient


  positive relationship; variables move in the same direction
• Coefficient is the slope of the best fit line

  true
• Coefficient

  Unit of increase/decrease for a one unit increase of the dependent variable
• Independent variable examples

  Income
• Independent variable

  What we think will explain or determine the value of the dependent variable
• Dependent variable example

  Emergence of democracy
• Dependent variable

  Outcome or thing we want to explain
• Rewarding the military

  Revenue from natural resources allow dictators to provide selective benefits to armed forces
• Revenue without taxation


  Resources mean dictatorship is not dependent on citizens of revenue
• How do asset types determine if dictators stay in power?

  Fixed or immobile asset holders have less credible exit threats and, therefore, exert less leverage over the state
• How natural resources help dictators stay in power? (3)

  1. Asset type

  2. Revenue without taxation

  3. Rewarding the military
• Dictators are unstable and predatory

  true