Demographic and Political Transitions

This paper revisits the political economy of transitions to democracy. We build on the canonical rational choice model of democratization by introducing demography, arguing that the demographic structure of a society shapes the material incentives for a democratic movement. Young people can benefit from democratic improvements over a longer time horizon and may have a lower opportunity cost of participating in democratic movements. Hence, a rise in the youth ratio, during the demographic transition, is likely to open a democratic window of opportunity as the increasing threat of revolution might encourage an autocratic elite to concede more democracy. We test this prediction on two long country-year panel data sets containing detailed demographic data. Fixed-effects panel regressions demonstrate that an increase in the youth ratio is robustly associated with democratic improvements. The effect is particularly pronounced for "youth bulges" measured as the proportion of the population between the ages of 15 and 19 for which opportunity cost of revolting is substantially lower. Two distinct instrumental variable strategies, using lagged fertility rates in neighboring countries and past drought episodes, allow for a causal interpretation of this correlation. Furthermore, the effect of the youth ratio on democratic improvements is more pronounced during recessions suggesting that demographic and macroeconomic factors should be considered as complementary channels.