Democratic Backsliding and the Reshaping of Trade Networks: Volume and Centrality

This paper aims to assess the effect of democratic backsliding on a country’s trade volume. I argue that as a country backslides their overall trade volume will decrease, trade with democracies will decrease, and trade with autocracies will increase. My second argument is that as a country becomes more central, the effects of backsliding will be reduced. This paper finds that overall trade increases for backsliders, when centrality is unaccounted for. Once centrality is introduced as a moderating effect these results are reaffirmed, but I find that backsliding affects a country’s long-standing trade partners more than its total trade volume.  Additionally, there is no significant change in trade with democracies. In contrast, trade with autocracies shows a large statistically significant positive effect, which suggests more central backsliders increase their trade with autocracies.