A large body of literature in economics and political science examines the impact of democracy and political freedom on various outcomes using cross-country comparisons. This paper examines the possibility that any positive effects of democracy observed in these studies may be due to strong democratic nations, their allies, and international organizations that behave more democratically than non-democracies, a concept I call the pro-democratic channel. First, after I control for sanctions from the G7 or the United Nations and having military conflicts and cooperation with the West, most of the positive effects of democracy on the growth of the regression of the various countries become insignificant or negatively significant. Second, using the same empirical analysis as the middle power literature, I show that sanctions, military aggression, and non-security cooperation with the West are viable channels through which democracy creates growth. Finally, in the period before the collapse of the Soviet Union, which coincides with a time when democracy promotion was rarely used as a reason for punishment, the effect of democracy on GDP per capita is already weak or negative without additional controls, and it is. another bad thing when the grace of democracy is controlled. These findings support the democratic pathway and challenge the notion that individual democratic institutional characteristics lead to desirable outcomes. The critique offered in this paper applies to the broader comparative literature of social science and political philosophy.
That’s from a new paper by Ziho Park, hat tip to Bryan Caplan.
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