Abstract Hoch 2009

The Impact of Economic Globalization on Democratization in the Least Developed
Countries (LDCs)

Tomáš Hoch

Abstract: Democratization studies have traditionally focused on the importance of domestic economic and political factors. Until the 1990s the international factors had been marginalized. Because the rise of democracy in both wider and narrower senses came approximately at the same time as the outset of globalization and the emergence of neo-modernist approaches to trade liberalization, a fundamental question arose: isn’t the level of democracy influenced by the external factors much more than we have recognized so far? Globalization is one of the major external factors in the process. Therefore, the principal question of this paper is whether there is a direct correlation between democracy in the LDC countries group and the ongoing globalization? If so, what is this correlation? Comparing the level of democracy in LDCs since the beginning of the 1980s until today using the methodology of Freedom House and selected indicators for LDCs countries, we make the case that the ongoing globalization has a positive impact on the level of democracy in the group of t least developed countries.

Keywords: Democratization process, globalization, LDC countries group