Testing the Waves: Looking for International Effects on Democratization
Gleditsch and Ward (2006) argue that democratization is influenced by
international factors such as the degree to which neighbors and the
international environment are democratized. Using multiple imputation
methods to correct for missing data problems, we confirm the authors'
results that high proportions of neighboring democracies increase both
democratic transitions and democratic consolidation, although the effect on
democratic transitions is much smaller after 1950. However, while the
authors find no effect of higher global proportions of democracies on
democracy consolidation, we find that when considering a more complete set
of countries, higher proportions of global democracy actually predict less
democratic consolidation. We hypothesize that this more complete set of
countries is better reflecting the wave pattern of democratization. When
waves of democratization occur, the proportion of democracies increases,
many of which are unsustainable. The instability caused by rapid and
widespread democratization may increase the probability of reverting back to
autocracy for many countries.