Episodes of liberalization in autocracies: a new approach to quantitatively studying democratization

This paper introduces a new approach to the quantitative study of democratization. Building on the comparative case-study and large-N literature, it outlines an episode approach that identifies the discrete beginning of a period of political liberalization, traces its progression, and classifies epi...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Political science research and methods 2023-07, Vol.11 (3), p.501-520
Main Authors: Wilson, Matthew C., Medzihorsky, Juraj, Maerz, Seraphine F., Lindenfors, Patrik, Edgell, Amanda B., Boese, Vanessa A., Lindberg, Staffan I.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Authoritarianism
Autocracy
bias
Comparative politics
Democracy
Democratization
diffusion
Government & Law
Homogeneity
institutions
Liberalization
paradox
political institutions
Political Science
regimes
stability
Statsvetenskap
transitions
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This paper introduces a new approach to the quantitative study of democratization. Building on the comparative case-study and large-N literature, it outlines an episode approach that identifies the discrete beginning of a period of political liberalization, traces its progression, and classifies episodes as successful versus different types of failing outcomes, thus avoiding potentially fallacious assumptions of unit homogeneity. We provide a description and analysis of all 383 liberalization episodes from 1900 to 2019, offering new insights on democratic “waves”. We also demonstrate the value of this approach by showing that while several established covariates are valuable for predicting the ultimate outcomes, none explain the onset of a period of liberalization.
ISSN:2049-8470
2049-8489
2049-8489
DOI:10.1017/psrm.2022.11