Jumps into Democracy::  Integrating the Short and Long Run in the Democratic Transition

Martin Paldam; Erich Gundlach

doi:10.1111/kykl.12177

Jumps into Democracy: Integrating the Short and Long Run in the Democratic Transition

Department of Economics and Business Economics

Research output: Contribution to journal/Conference contribution in journal/Contribution to newspaper › Journal article › Research › peer-review

12 Citations (Scopus)

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Abstract

When countries get wealthy, they become democracies. Using kernel regressions, we show that the long-run path in the Polity index looks exactly as a transition curve. However, the literature lacks a short-run model that can generate this path. We note that the main political regime index is constant for most years. However, the stability is interrupted by infrequent jumps that are often quite large. We argue that periods of constancy represent political status quo equilibria that need to be broken by a triggering event. We find that such events occur randomly, i.e., they cannot be explained by economic variables. But if an event causes a change in the regime, the jump is normally in the direction of the transition curve. Hence, the curve acts as an attractor for the jumps. This is a new finding that integrates the short and the long run of the Democratic Transition.

Original language	English
Journal	Kyklos
Volume	71
Issue	3
Pages (from-to)	456-481
Number of pages	26
ISSN	0023-5962
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/kykl.12177
Publication status	Published - 2018

Keywords

ECONOMIC-DEVELOPMENT
GROWTH
INCOME
MODERNIZATION

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abstract = "When countries get wealthy, they become democracies. Using kernel regressions, we show that the long-run path in the Polity index looks exactly as a transition curve. However, the literature lacks a short-run model that can generate this path. We note that the main political regime index is constant for most years. However, the stability is interrupted by infrequent jumps that are often quite large. We argue that periods of constancy represent political status quo equilibria that need to be broken by a triggering event. We find that such events occur randomly, i.e., they cannot be explained by economic variables. But if an event causes a change in the regime, the jump is normally in the direction of the transition curve. Hence, the curve acts as an attractor for the jumps. This is a new finding that integrates the short and the long run of the Democratic Transition.",

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AB - When countries get wealthy, they become democracies. Using kernel regressions, we show that the long-run path in the Polity index looks exactly as a transition curve. However, the literature lacks a short-run model that can generate this path. We note that the main political regime index is constant for most years. However, the stability is interrupted by infrequent jumps that are often quite large. We argue that periods of constancy represent political status quo equilibria that need to be broken by a triggering event. We find that such events occur randomly, i.e., they cannot be explained by economic variables. But if an event causes a change in the regime, the jump is normally in the direction of the transition curve. Hence, the curve acts as an attractor for the jumps. This is a new finding that integrates the short and the long run of the Democratic Transition.

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Jumps into Democracy: Integrating the Short and Long Run in the Democratic Transition

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Keywords

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