Economic Development, Violent Leader Removal, and Democratization

dc.contributor.authorMiller, Michael
dc.date.accessioned2015-12-07T22:15:12Z
dc.date.issued2012
dc.date.updated2015-12-07T07:42:25Z
dc.description.abstractThis article argues that autocratic regime strength plays a critical mediating role in the link between economic development and democracy. Looking at 167 countries from 1875 to 2004, I find that development strengthens autocratic regimes, as indicated by a reduced likelihood of violent leader removal. Simultaneously, greater development predicts democratization, but only if a violent turnover has occurred in the recent past. Hence, development can cause democratization, but only in distinctive periods of regime vulnerability. Although development's stabilizing and democratizing forces roughly balance out within autocracies, they reinforce each other within democracies, resolving the puzzle of why economic development has a stronger effect on democratic stability than on democratization. Further, the theory extends to any variable that predicts violent leader removal and democracy following such violence, pointing to broad unexplored patterns of democratic development.
dc.identifier.issn0092-5853
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1885/17797
dc.publisherBlackwell Publishing Ltd
dc.sourceAmerican Journal of Political Science
dc.titleEconomic Development, Violent Leader Removal, and Democratization
dc.typeJournal article
local.bibliographicCitation.issue4
local.bibliographicCitation.lastpage1020
local.bibliographicCitation.startpage1002
local.contributor.affiliationMiller, Michael, College of Arts and Social Sciences, ANU
local.contributor.authoremailrepository.admin@anu.edu.au
local.contributor.authoruidMiller, Michael, u5050125
local.description.notesImported from ARIES
local.identifier.absfor160603 - Comparative Government and Politics
local.identifier.absseo940203 - Political Systems
local.identifier.ariespublicationu5050125xPUB2
local.identifier.citationvolume56
local.identifier.doi10.1111/j.1540-5907.2012.00595.x
local.identifier.scopusID2-s2.0-84860506979
local.identifier.thomsonID000312683500007
local.identifier.uidSubmittedByu5050125
local.type.statusPublished Version

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