AN OCCUPATION WITH DEMOCRATIZATION: A MARGINAL VALUE APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING THE CONSOLIDATION OF IMPOSED DEMOCRATIC REGIMES

Abstract

The dissertation attempts to understand the causes and correlates of democratic consolidation in occupied territories. A Marginal Value Model attempts to explain the consolidation of democracy in these cases as a function of international threat dynamics and the relationship between the occupiers and the occupied regime. The dissertation tests the Marginal Value Model and its corresponding hypotheses against four case studies: post-WWI Germany, post-WWII Germany, Japan and Korea. The study finds that democracies are more likely to consolidate when there is an external threat, when the occupier credibly protects the new regime against this threat, and when the occupier provides additional goods to the domestic population. These tests find support for the Marginal Value Model and its corresponding hypotheses.