2015/07/31 by Thomas Gift, Daniel Krcmaric · 96 citations
Social Sciences · #Political Conflict and Governance #International Development and Aid #Social Policy and Reform Studies #Democratization #Democracy #Political science #Political economy #Sociology #Politics #Law
paper · doi:10.1177/0022002715590878
published in Journal of Conflict Resolution 61(3), 671-701 (SAGE Publishing)
openalex publication_date 2015/07/31 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
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.