The relationship between trade openness and liberal democracy: A Turkish case

With the spread of globalization, countries have begun to integrate into the global economy, and this integration has brought countries to adopt liberal policies by removing the barriers on trade. The political economy literature embodies the theories that this process of trade openness, which comes with globalization, has positive effects on the institutional structure and encourages democratization. In addition, another theory argues that the most important factor in determining the trade policies of the governments is the preferences of the countries' median voters. It is argued that this direct effect of individuals on policies encourages democratization. However, there are many types of democracy, and although the countries are classified as democratic, in some countries, while electoral democracy works smoothly, it is observed that liberal democracy declines. In this study, the relationship between trade openness and liberal democracy was analyzed with the ARDL using annual data for the years 1974-2018 for Turkey, and as a result, it was observed that trade liberalization promoted liberal democracy in Turkey. In this analysis, which was examined with robustness tests on many different variables and alternative theories, it was determined that the results were quite strong. In addition, it has been observed that the capital and land ratios encourage liberal democracy, and results consistent with the literature have been obtained. This study makes a great contribution to the political economy literature in terms of benefiting from different types of democracy in examining the relationship between liberal democracy and trade openness for Turkey. Key Words: Trade Openness, Liberal Democracy, ARDL