An ?Austere? Look at Economic Liberalization, Human Rights, and Democracy.

In this paper, we examine the effects of structural adjustment policies (SAPs) on the democratic practices of loan recipient governments, using a dataset of 159 countries from 1981-2004. To meet the conditions of World Bank and IMF SAPs, recipient governments must cut back on public employment and reduce government spending in the areas of health, housing, education, and welfare. Leaders of the World Bank, IMF, and first world governments contend that the governments of third world countries must undertake these policies if they want to cure their economic problems. According to this perspective, improved human rights practices will be one of the many benefits of achieving a higher level of economic development. Rapley (2002), Stiglitz (2002), Vreeland (2003), and many other critics of SAPs argue that these programs have worsened the economic situations within recipient states. Preliminary evidence shows that SAPs undermine democracy and human rights movements in developing countries. SAP-related reductions in state services hurt the most vulnerable members of society. Citizens who have lost these protections often increase their anti-government activity. These challenges to government policies, in turn, often provoke government repression and institutional changes reducing "democraticness." The reductions in democraticness hold for both the short and long-term. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]