Economic development, historical state authority embeddedness, and democracy

This study examines how historical state authority embeddedness conditions the relationship between economic development and democracy. Drawing on a country–year panel dataset covering 1960–2024, it analyzes within-country variation in economic development and democratic outcomes. The results show that economic development does not exert a uniform effect on democracy. In countries with high historical embeddedness, the democratizing effects of economic development become weaker, as newly generated economic and organizational resources are more likely to be incorporated into existing state-centered political structures. By contrast, in countries with low embeddedness, economic development is more likely to facilitate autonomous social organization and democratic expansion. These findings suggest that the political consequences of economic development are conditioned by historical state authority embeddedness that shapes how new resources are politically absorbed and organized. The study contributes to modernization theory by highlighting the historical and organizational conditions under which economic development translates into democratic change.