Nonviolent Regime Change and Economic Freedom

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between nonviolent regime change and economic freedom. While existing research shows that nonviolent campaigns lead to more durable democracies, less is known about their impact on economic institutions and policies. We test whether countries that experienced nonviolent regime change saw greater improvements in economic freedom compared to countries with no regime change or violent regime change. Using data on civil resistance and violent campaigns from the NAVCO dataset along with the Fraser Institute's Economic Freedom Index, we employ propensity score and Mahalanobis matching models. We find that nonviolent regime change has a positive effect on overall economic freedom in the long run, driven largely by improvements in legal systems/property rights protections and regulatory policies. The effects emerge 5-10 years after the regime change. By contrast, violent regime change shows few significant effects. These results highlight an underappreciated benefit of nonviolent movements-their ability to spur liberalizing economic reforms in addition to democratization. The findings suggest that nonviolent resistance not only delivers political freedoms but also lays a foundation for inclusive economic institutions. We find the results are largely driven by countries that were autocratic pre-regime change but then soon after became democracies.

Keywords: Nonviolent resistance, Economic freedom, Regime change

JEL Classification: D74, O43, O17, P16