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<p>This dissertation identified the determinants of a country's level of democracy. In 1996,  President Clinton incorporated democracy promotion as a key element in the U.S.  National Security Strategy. Experience since the Cold War demonstrated that the  implementation of reforms do not necessarily result in a Western-style democracy. The  selection and accountability of a country's leaders resides on a political spectrum from no  democracy (i.e., fully autocratic) to full democracy with many variations in between.  Using a multi-method approach including econometric, computational, and case  study analysis on Mexico, the Philippines, and Senegal, this study proposed and tested a  model of democratic change based upon the interaction between a country's socioeconomic  conditions, its actors, and its level of democracy. The analysis determined that  no one factor could definitively predict a change in democracy. Each factor affected the  preferences of key actors whose interaction resulted in changes in democracy. Violence  and poverty provided a centripetal effect on polity while economic crisis and the loss of  an interstate war had a centrifugal effect that pushed polities towards the extremes of the  polity spectrum. Although economic income and development contributed to the  potential for democracy, neither factor affected the timing of changes in democracy.
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<br>Subjects: Industrialization.; Democracy; democratization; consolidation; transition; economic development; industrialization; insurgency; violence; diffusion; democratic norms; Philippines; Mexico; Senegal; quantitative; econometric computational model; supply; demand; structural actors; agency; institution; autocracy</div>
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Fowler, Michael W.</div>
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