2023/08/03 by Omar García‐Ponce, Léonard Wantchekon · 1 voice · 54 citations
Social Sciences · #Adjudication #Autocracy #Causality (physics) #Culture, Economy, and Development Studies #Democracy #Development economics #Dissent #Economics #Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies #Independence (probability theory) #Law #Political Conflict and Governance #Political economy #Political science #Politics #Regime change #Sociology
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/ajps.12798
published in American Journal of Political Science 68(4), 1266-1285 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 2023/08/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/03
Abstract We show that current levels of democracy in Africa are linked to the nature of its independence movements. Using different measures of political regimes and historical data on anticolonial movements, we find that countries that experienced rural insurgencies tend to have autocratic regimes, while those that faced urban protests tend to have more democratic institutions. The association between the type of independence movement and democracy is statistically significant for the post‐Cold War period and robust to a number of potential confounding factors and sensitivity checks. We provide evidence for causality in this relationship by using an instrumental variables approach and a difference‐in‐differences design with fixed effects. Furthermore, we adjudicate between two potential mechanisms and find support for a behavioral path dependence hypothesis. Urban protests enabled participants to develop norms of peaceful political behavior, which provided cultural bases for liberal democracy. In contrast, armed rebellions generated behavioral patterns that perpetuated political exclusion and the use of violence as a form of political dissent.