Who Democratizes? Western-educated Leaders and Regime Transitions

Thomas Gift and Daniel Krcmaric

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2017, vol. 61, issue 3, 671-701

Abstract: Many theories attempt to explain why some countries democratize and others do not. Existing accounts, however, focus almost exclusively on structural factors and ignore individual leaders. In this article, we argue that leaders educated at Western universities are more likely to democratize than other leaders because Western education socializes leaders to prefer democracy and creates transnational linkages that alter the strategic calculus of democratization. Utilizing an original data set on the specific colleges and universities world leaders attended, we show that Western-educated leaders significantly and substantively improve a country’s democratization prospects.

Keywords: democratization; political leadership; democratic institutions; foreign policy; international organization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jocore:v:61:y:2017:i:3:p:671-701

DOI: 10.1177/0022002715590878

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