The political globalization trilemma revisited: An empirical assessment across countries and over time

Abstract

The political globalization trilemma asserts that a government cannot simultaneously opt for deep international integration, national sovereignty and democratic politics, but rather is constrained to choosing two of the three at most. This paper employs cross-country panel data operationalizing the multifaceted three vertices of the trilemma. After explorative data analysis, we employ panel error-correction techniques to uncover the mutual interdependencies among the variables in the system. The econometric evidence supports the existence of a long-run relationship between economic integration, national sovereignty and democratic politics as postulated in the political globalization trilemma.