Governance Built Step-by-Step: Analysing Sequences to Explain Democratization

Abstract

As with many other questions in political science, explaining the timing of democratization may require a more nuanced focus on temporal mechanisms such as tempo and order. Based on a sample of independent regimes for the post World War II period from 1946 to 2008, I examine the order of regime change as part of a long-term institutional history. I argue that along with other conventional explanations for democratization, the institutional history of a country lends itself to empirical treatments based on patterns of prior regime change. The utility of sequence analysis is demonstrated by its ability to uncover obscure patterns—such as the delicate historical relationship between presidential democracy and military autocracy. Insofar as similar histories of regime change add to models of democratization, sequence analysis provides a way to go beyond duration and operationalize other forms of time-dependence. This analysis supports democratization research by focusing on new approaches to modeling the impact of time on democratization. It shows the usefulness of sequence analysis for answering important questions concerning the order and sequence of political events.