Economic Globalization and Democratic Development in East Asia: The Indirect Link

Over the past decades, East Asian states have enjoyed economic development and progress toward democracy through extensive economic transformation: trade and financial liberalization. To explain the theoretical mechanism of these variables, we investigate the direct and indirect effects of globalization on democratic development via economic development. To this end, a two-equation model is specified and estimated using data from 1972 to 2010 for 12 East Asian countries. The results show that globalization has not only a direct effect, but also an indirect effect on democracy via economic development