Neoliberalism and Globalization Are Not Undermining Democracy: Panel Evidence From More Than 140 Countries, 1980–2022

Stefani Branilović and Tibor Rutar

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 2025, vol. 84, issue 5, 797-821

Abstract: The rise of neoliberal reforms in the period of globalization is often claimed to be linked with wider outcomes, such as increased inequality, unemployment, and different cultural grievances. Because of these economic and cultural concerns, voters might seek solutions to their ostensible problems by turning to illiberal populist parties, which tend to undermine democracy and its basic principles. The present article empirically tests if neoliberalism, operationalized with the Fraser Institute's Economic Freedom of the World, and globalization, operationalized with the KOF's Globalization Index, were somehow associated with democratic integrity. The analysis is performed through fixed‐effects regressions in more than 140 countries between 1980 and 2022. The main results show that over‐time increases in both neoliberalism and globalization predicted over‐time increases in five different types of democracy scores. Furthermore, the analyses with disaggregated indexes showed that freedom of international trade, modesty of regulation, legal system and property rights, and social globalization are what drive the relationship at the aggregate level. Results also showed that there are no statistically significant relationships between economic freedom and Freedom House's democracy scores specifically in the time period between 2011 and 2022. Furthermore, there are no statistically significant results indicating a relationship between globalization and democracy during the same time period. This is an interesting observation since this time period is commonly understood as most clearly embodying the democratic recession.

Date: 2025
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