Suchergebnisse

AbstractNearly all contemporary countries were colonized at some point in their history by a foreign power, but do citizens resent their former metropoles for past colonial abuses? We exploit survey questions in which respondents were asked for their opinion of a named foreign country. Our analyses of responses from over ninety countries yield the surprising finding that today's citizens are more favourable toward their country's former colonizer – by 40 per cent of a standard deviation – than they are toward other countries. Contemporary monadic traits that make former metropoles liked around the world – especially their tendency to be democracies – as well as their relatively high volumes of trade with former colonies explain their popularity among citizens of their former colonies. We also illustrate and describe these patterns in two least-likely cases, Mexico and Zimbabwe. Our findings have important implications for understanding international soft power, an asset about which today's states care deeply.

The booming literature on the consequences of democratization for material welfare has produced no findings on the relationship between regime type and relative consumer prices. The literature largely shows that democracies favor masses over elites, generating the expectation that democratization should lower consumer prices. Yet it also finds that democratization boosts economic growth, an outcome that is partially contingent on making consumer goods expensive relative to capital goods. We argue that democratization lowers relative consumer prices since politicians under democracy can more effectively chase votes by satisfying consumers' demands for the immediate payoff of lower prices. Our statistical analysis of 160-plus countries over 60 years shows that democratization raises consumer advantage, which is the consumer price level relative to the price level of capital goods. We also provide evidence of the policy levers that democratizing countries have used to achieve this effect.