Multiethnic Autocracy under Economic Globalization: Theory and Evidence from Developing Countries.

This paper explores the conditions under which economic globalization induces political regime change in developing countries. Focusing on the size of dominant ethnic groups, fractionalization of dominated ethnic groups and economic distribution in a globalized society, this paper predicts that economic globalization tends to undermine democracy and consolidate autocracy in more ethnically diverse societies. A series of statistical investigations demonstrates that although global market integration by itself does not have any general impacts on regime change, globalization, especially trade liberalization, is more likely to make the countries more autocratic in plural societies. A cross-national quantitative analysis of 124 developing countries from 1960-2000 demonstrates that trade openness is negatively correlated with political openness as the countries are ethnically fractionalized and politically dominated by smaller ethnic groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]