Democracy and Economic Openness in an Interconnected System
Complex Transformations

Li and Reuveny use an interdisciplinary social-scientific approach to investigate today's key political, economic, and environmental issues.

Quan Li (Author), Rafael Reuveny (Author)

9780521728904, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 31 July 2009

362 pages, 3 b/w illus. 35 tables
22.8 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.53 kg

'Methodologically, this book rigorously employs a quantitative approach, and thus tests hypotheses with the use of statistics and large-n real world data analysis … This book is a theoretically grounded, interdisciplinary-oriented and methodologically  rigorous investigation of arguably the most important problem in the social sciences today. The complex and often misunderstood relationship between globalisation and democracy … Utlimately, Democracy and Economic Openness is essential reading for social scientists and policy makers interested in addressing the world's most important issues, such as globalistation, democracy, interstate conflict and environmental degradation.' Salvador Santino F. Regilme Jr, Political Studies Review

In this book, Quan Li and Rafael Reuveny combine the social scientific approach with a broad, interdisciplinary scope to address some of the most intriguing and important political, economic, and environmental issues of our times. Their book employs formal and statistical methods to study the interactions of economic globalization, democratic governance, income inequality, economic development, military violence, and environmental degradation. In doing so, Li and Reuveny cross multiple disciplinary boundaries, engage various academic debates, bring the insights from compartmentalized bodies of literature into direct dialogue, and uncover policy tradeoffs in a growingly interconnected political-economic-environmental system. They show that growing interconnectedness in the global system increases the demands on national leaders and their advisors; academicians and policy makers will need to cross disciplinary boundaries if they seek to better understand and address the policy tradeoffs of even more complex processes than the ones investigated here.

1. Introduction
Part I. The Democracy-Economy Nexus: 2. Democracy and economic openness
3. Democracy, economic openness, and income inequality
4. Democracy and development
Part II. Bringing in Conflict: 5. Democracy and conflict
6. Economic openness and conflict
Part III. Bringing in the Environment: 7. Democracy and the environment
8. Economic openness and the environment
9. Conflict and the environment
10. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP], Economics [KC]