Are richer countries more democratic? the case of Muslim-majority countries

In this study, the correlation between democracy and economic growth is investigated in the context of forty-six Muslim-majority countries. Although the relationship between democracy and economic variables has been quite popular in the literature, the case of Muslim-majority countries has been rarely studied. Moreover, the existing studies have not yet reached a clear conclusion considering the correlation. I study the time period 1960-2015 because this is the longest time span for which all of the variables of interest to this study are available. A contribution of the study is that data from four different sources that publish democracy indices for the specified time interval and countries are used. By using data from four sources that adopt different definitions of the multi-pronged concept of democracy, this study generates a more detailed and more reliable picture of the link between democracy and income per capita. One democracy index, called V-Dem, has been fairly recently developed and has several advantages over the other indices (Freedom House, Polity IV, and Vanhanen Democracy Indices). To estimate the regression model, the fixed effects model is chosen, since it takes into account the heterogeneity among countries, which is quite high. The results support the hypothesis that in the group of Muslim-majority countries and in the time period 1960-2015; ceteris paribus, the ones that have a higher domestic product per capita are the ones that are more democratic. Keywords: Democracy, economic growth, Muslim-majority countries