This chapter provides a conceptual framework for integrating the array of variables defined in diffusion research to explicate their influence on an actor's decision to adopt an innovation. The framework groups the variables into three major components. The first component includes characteristics of the innovation itself, within which two sets of variables are defined concerning public versus private consequences and benefits versus costs of adoption. A second component involves the characteristics of innovators (actors) that influence the probability of adoption of an innovation. Within this component six sets of variables concern societal entity of innovators (either people, organizations, states, etc.), familiarity with the innovation, status characteristics, socioeconomic characteristics, position in social networks, and personal qualities. The third component involves characteristics of the environmental context that modulate diffusion via structural characteristics of the modern world. These latter characteristics incorporate four sets of variables: geographical settings, societal culture, political conditions, and global uniformity. The concluding analysis highlights the need in diffusion research to incorporate more fully (a) the interactive character of diffusion variables, (b) the gating function of diffusion variables, and (c) effects of an actor's characteristics on the temporal rate of diffusion.

While a trend of growth in democratization over the past two centuries has been generally observed, it is the remarkable growth in the democratization of the world over the past 30 years that has truly captured the imagination of social scientists, policymakers, and the general public alike. Two major sets of factors have dominated studies attempting to predict democratization. One set characterizes endogenous or internal features of countries, and may be referred to as socioeconomic development. The other set, less often tested, characterizes exogenous variables that influence democratization via forces at work globally and within the region in which a country resides; this set may be referred to as diffusion processes. This study provides the first systematic comparison of these two sets of variables. When assessed alone, development indicators are robust predictors of democracy, but their predictive power fades with the inclusion of diffusion variables. In particular, diffusion predictors of spatial proximity and networks are robust predictors of democratic growth in both the world and across all regions. The results demonstrate that regional patterns in democratization are evident, and hence world analyses are only the first approximation to understanding democratic growth. Finally, this study introduces an application of Multilevel Regression Models to studies on democratization. Such models fit observed data on world democratization better than the simple regression models used in most previous studies.

During the last two decades, the social sciences have seen a dramatic increase in the study of diffusion processes; a growing number of scholars have investigated how and why economic, social, and political innovations spread across nations, or across states inside federal countries, such as the United States and Brazil.The first phase of research has examined the extent to which external influences impact domestic decision making: Do demonstration and contagion effects make a significant difference, and what is their effect, by contrast to the standard domestic determinants of decision making? After many scholars applying ever more sophisticated statistical techniques documented the importance of diffusion processes in a number of areas of society, politics, and policy, a second stage of research in the last few years began to disentangle the exact nature of external influences and the causal mechanisms through which they operate. Do decision makers learn from the success of front-runners and assess the benefits and costs of their reforms in systematic, thorough, and rational ways? Or do innovative experiences serve as models that exert strong normative appeal and raise the standards of appropriate behavior, pushing latecomers toward imitation? Alternatively, are innovations actively promoted by their initiators or by international organizations or great powers, which promote their spread with more or less forceful pressure? These questions, which mark the current research frontier, speak to major theoretical debates over rationality versus sociological motivations and over sovereignty and hierarchy in the contemporary global system.Consequently, the study of diffusion phenomena constitutes one of the most vibrant and exciting research areas in the social sciences. One added attraction arises from the fact that diffusion research productively trespasses outdated dividing lines between the subfields of comparative politics and international relations; between "American" politics and the remainder of political science; and, above all, among sociology, political science, and other disciplines. Barbara Wejnert's wide-ranging and ambitious book embodies this interdisciplinary approach. As a political sociologist, she conducts a comprehensive analysis of the Diffusion of Democracy at the global level over the course of the last two centuries. While her predominant approach is the statistical investigation of a worldwide data set, the study also draws on the author's intensive interview research with democratic activists in Eastern Europe, which focuses on the fall of communism and the subsequent transition to democracy.Chapter 1 sets up the analysis by explaining the measurement of democracy, which relies largely on Polity IV and Freedom House, and by depicting the growth of democracy in the world since 1800. Chapter 2 first offers an ample overview of the theoretical literature, which Wejnert divides into diffusion approaches and development approaches. She discusses a great variety of external influences, which can ...

No abstract

No abstract