Democracy, Social Spending and Poverty (Draft)

The paper provides a review of the existing literatures on the effects of both democratization and globalization on social spending, poverty levels, and social welfare more generally. In the review, the author evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of current contributions and highlights the similarities and divergences in the findings of this rapidly expanding area of research. Issues relative to data availability and reliability are briefly reviewed, with a focus on the quantitative analysis available in large N studies, which adopt a cross-national perpsective. The paper provides an updated discussion of global trends in democratization, social spending and poverty by further exploring recently available data.