Does Economic Growth Affect Democratic Transition?

American political scientist Jay Ulfelder challenged the so-called “cardinal principle of empirical democratic theory” alleged by democratization scholar Larry Diamond. Diamond proposed that “hard economic times” translate to “hard times for democracy.” Ulfelder’s recent study concluded that this might not be the case necessarily.

Ulfelder used the findings of his study to dispel complaints from senior officials in Egypt, warning that cutting U.S. aid to Egypt at this time would “transform a peaceful revolution into a hunger revolution.” Ulfelder, using a data set specifically targeted at 103 transitions to democracy from 1955-2008, constructed a model that compared the conditions from each transition and measured the odds that the ensuing regimes survived for “at least 5 years.”

Ulfelder found that a new democracy is more likely to survive under positive economic conditions, but not at any level of significance. Large swings in GDP growth, which in real-world situations are unlikely, only produced marginal differences in “estimated likelihood of survival.” The economic conditions did not have a “make or break impact” on the survival of democracy. However what does have an impact, found Ulfelder, is the level of economic development and the “occurrence of acute political polarization.”

Applying the model to Tunisia, Egypt, Libya who “arguably” met the conditions required to meet Ulfelder’s definition of “democratic transitions” and noting that Tunisia is not “acutely polarized,” Ulfelder found the following results for the transitions in North Africa:

Tunisia: 82%                                 Egypt: 48%                              Libya: 89%