Are civil liberties contagious? Analysis of determinants of de facto civil rights protection in post-socialist countries

Abstract In this paper, we contribute to the debate on determinants of civil liberties protection by extending the standard approach using spatial components. Our analysis highlights three categories of civil liberties–private civil liberties, political civil liberties and physical integrity rights. The focus of the paper is the region of post-socialist countries in Central and Eastern Europe. Our results imply the existence of institutional diffusion of de facto civil liberties protection between countries. What is more, we identify clusters of civil rights protection relevant for post-socialist states. The conclusions are based on an empirical study (a spatial panel Durbin GMM model and Local Moran I statistic).