Note: This is part of an example political science literature review and research design. An abstract and table of contents are also available.
Before the ample literature on economic and political freedom in post-Communist societies is examined, some work on geographic determinism will be reviewed. Specifically, an overview of geographic determinist viewpoints will be presented, examples of geographic determinism with respect to democracy earlier in the literature will be highlighted, and an interesting synthesis on geography, democracy, and war will be examined.
Without getting bogged down into the morass of terminology that Lewthwaite (1968) explores, it is important to say that geography is an important factor in development without being the only factor. As Spykman (1938) writes
It should be emphasized, however, that geography has been described as a conditioning rather than as a determining factor. The word was chosen advisedly. It was not meant to imply that geographic characteristics play a deterministic, causal role in foreign policy. The geographical determinism which explains by geography all things from the fourth symphony to the fourth dimension paints as distorted a picture as does an explanation of policy with no reference to geography. The geography of a country is rather the material for, than the cause of, its policy, and to admit that the garment must ultimately be cut to fit the cloth is not to say that the cloth determines either the garment’s style or its adequacy. But the geography of as state cannot be ignored by the men who formulate its policy. The nature of the territorial base has influenced them in that formulation in the past and will continue to do so in the future.
The field is limited for detailed geographic-political examinations of specific states. Williams (1927) is an example of this literature. While not ignoring the effects of illiteracy, ethnicity, regionalism, and political culture, Williams examines geographic factors that led to corruption and lack of freedom for the east coast of Nicaragua. “[O]ne of the prime purposes of thus making the [east coast]‘s head an appoint of the central government is to overcome the centrifugal influence of difficult transportation and so to furnish a federal or national “safety-first…”. After some further exposition, where he looks at a geographic-taxation nexus, Williams looks at corruption:
From this same geography of isolation there follows another factor which causes discontent and instability not only in Bluefields and on the coast, but in many other isolated parts of the almost roadless nation. His usual remoteness from the capital not only permits but practically forces the Commandante or district governor to demonstrate the absolutism of a Spanish regent, rather than the leadership of a republic’s civil servant. All the difficulties of the jungle forbid his getting daily orders, just as they make extremely unlikely any sort of check-up of his actions by the distant federal powers which appointed him. The natural result is that every province is likely to feel — and fell in proportion to the square of the distance — the pressure of the Commandante’s belief that his services are wroth considerably more than his regular monthly salary.
An inspiration for this paper is a comment made by Ricardo Hausmann in 2001. While outlining his theory of latitude dependency in development, Hausmann notes:
Nations with populations far from a coastline also tend to be poorer and show lower rates of economic growth than coastal countries. A country whose population is farther than 100 kilometers from the sea grows 0.6 percent slower per year than nations in which the entire population is within 100 kilometers of the coast. That means, for example that the post-Soviet republics will experience as much difficulty battling their geographical disadvantages as they will overcoming the aftereffects of communism…
This study will look at the absence of sea borders, or being landlocked, instead of the more precise measure of distance from a coastline. However, the the