Length of Independence and the State-Democracy Nexus

Previous research has concluded that the length of independence decreases the probability of democratic breakdown. In other words, democratic regimes in new states tend to become more stable as the state gets older. This result builds on the assumption that the state capacity, which, in turn, supports democratic stability, increases as the country gets older. In this paper, we empirically test this assumption with data from the V-Dem Database. We test the chain that length of independence increases state capacity, which in turn decreases the probability of democratic breakdown. In line with the discussion about the state-democracy nexus, we also test if the length of independence through state capacity affects the probability of democratic transition. Furthermore, the paper examines the contextual conditions for the chain between length of independence and the-democracy nexus in order to analyse if and how the strength of the chain changes over time. The outcome will provide knowledge about the relationship between state formation and democracy in relation to the length of independence.