Factors Affecting Democratization in Post-Civil War Countries
Open Access
Author:
Schindler, Thomas
Area of Honors:
Social Data Analytics
Degree:
Bachelor of Science
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
Andrew Vitek, Thesis Supervisor Sona N. Golder, Thesis Honors Advisor
Keywords:
democracy democratization civil war
Abstract:
Why do some countries democratize after civil wars while others do not? This thesis will empirically test this question looking at the different factors affecting democratization following a civil war. It includes 92 conflicts and studies each of the ten years following the civil war. I study four explanatory variables: length, casualties, war type, and outcome. I test these variables on an OLS regression where my dependent variable is democracy score and a logit model where the dependent variable is whether the country increased in democracy level since the wars end. The results show that the two significant factors are length of the civil war and whether the war was fought over central control of the government. Length is shown to have a negative relationship whereas a war for central control is found to have a positive relationship with democracy.
