Over the past five decades, two successive waves of political reform have brought democracy to, first, Spain, Portugal and Greece, and, more recently, Central and Eastern European countries. We assessed whether democratization was associated with improvements in population health, as indicated by life expectancy and cause-specific mortality rates. Data on life expectancy at birth, age-standardi...

Perestroika was the most dramatic chapter in the political history of the world in the late twentieth century. Yet, it did not fulfill what was arguably its loftiest promise—to lay firm foundations for lasting popular rule in Russia. The failure of democratization in post-Soviet Russia may be traced in part to two fateful shortcomings in perestroika: the tepidity of Gorbachev’s economic reforms...

While standard political economy theories suggest a moderating effect of democratization on income inequality, empirical literature has failed to uncover any such robust relationship. Here we take yet another look at this issue arguing first, that prevailing ideology may be an important determinant of inequality and, second, that the democratization effect “works through” ideology. In societies...

A rich dictatorships more likely than poor dictatorships to collapse and be replaced by democracies? Consider, for example, Chile, which in 1985 had a per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of $3,400 and was under dictatorship, and Benin, which in the same year had a per capita income of about one-third of Chile’s, $1,108, and was also under dictatorship. Setting aside other differences betwee...

This article examines the effectiveness of UN peacebuilding missions in democratizing war-torn states, emphasizing those missions that include democracy promotion components in their mandates. Based on a multinominal logistic regression, we reveal that democratization is significantly more likely if a UN peacebuilding mission is deployed. Furthermore, regimes categorized as more liberal at the ...

Ward and Gleditsch (1998) showed that democratization reduces war proneness; as contemporary polities become more democratic, the probability that they will be involved in interstate war declines. This research reexamines and extends the previous work on the “dangerous democratization” versus “democratizing for peace” hypotheses in two major ways. First, we examine the claim that major powers h...

Evidence is presented that raises questions about the Clinton administration's policy of promoting peace by promoting democratization. The expectation that the spread of democracy will probably contribute to peace in the long run, once new democracies mature, provides little comfort to those who might face a heightened risk of war in the short run. Pushing nuclear-armed great powers like Russia...

the aim of this research is to scrutinize the effects of democratic regional organizations on democratization. we will scrutinize regional organizations regardless of their functional time and space. but attending the democratic feature that was regarded, we will concentrate mainly on the last three decades. after studying democratization process and represent subjects on democratic regional or...