Economic and Social Determinants of Democracy: An Empirical Evidence from Pakistan

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand the dynamics of democracy through empirical analysis of socio-economic determinants of democracy Design/Methodology/Approach: This is an empirical study based on secondary data from 1980- 2018. This research employs the Auto-Regressive and Distributive Lag (ARDL) econometric technique to find short-run and long relationships between democracy and its influencing factors. Findings: This paper’s findings unearth that education expenditures and economic growth are positively associated with democracy and are statistically significant in the long run. Furthermore, government expenditure, trade openness, corruption, and law & order are negatively associated with democracy and statistically significant in the long run.   Implications/Originality/Value This research suggests that it is importantly needed for the democratic government to rise the education expenditure and take an initiative for the better education of the voters, and make them able to understand their manifestos and the effects of their policies on the betterment of society. From top to bottom corruption and uncertain law & order situation in Pakistan would reduce trust in democracy and increases the level of frustration among citizens. The responsibility of improving the law & order situation and the eradication of corruption comes to the current Democratic government through strengthening the institutions and effective implementations.