Democratic Dominoes

This article is an attempt to indicate how diffusion approaches, based on the concepts of linkage and interdependence, can be of help in our thinking about the spread of democracy. The analyses address the existence or absence of diffusion effects in regard to changes in the degree of freedom in the world's governments, and whether or not there has been a more specific global movement towards democracy. The dependent variable is the set of “governmental transitions,” based on yearly Freedom House data. Diffusion analyses are at the global, regional, and neighbor-state levels (1974-1987). Thus analysis is limited to cues or prototypes from the external environment of states. Although neighbor effects are less than those found with the diffusion of war, all three levels support the proposition that there has been a diffusion of governmental transitions, including a movement towards democracy that provided a context for the dramatic events of 1988 and 1989.