THE EFFECTS OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE ON DEMOCRACY: A PANEL STUDY OF THE POST-SOVIET WORLD-SYSTEM

The author examines the relationship between democracy and international trade using post-Soviet countries as a historical example of a world-system. World-systems theory and alternative theories are employed to create theoretical models of democracy, and pooled time-series regression is applied, using an index of democracy as the dependent variable and two sets of theoretically distinct control variables. The author finds a negative relationship between core periphery trade and democracy and a positive relationship between trade openness and democracy in the periphery. The author draws three conclusions. First, international trade deserves more attention as a link between economic and political processes in world-systems analysis. Second, contrary to conventional analysis, the structure of core-periphery trade shows that the core uses its economic ties to politically exploit the periphery. Last, it is necessary to distinguish between core and noncore international trade in world-systems and political analysis.