Billiard Balls or Snowflakes

International Studies Quarterly (2007) 51, 31–52
Billiard Balls or Snowflakes?

Major Power Prestige and the International
Diffusion of Institutions and Practices
BENJAMIN O. FORDHAM
Binghamton University
VICTOR ASAL
University at Albany
Do the institutions and practices of the major powers influence those of

other states? Many international relations theorists have argued that
these powerful states’ prestige allows them to define what is normatively
acceptable. This paper tests the influence of the internal characteristics
of major powers on democratization, the extension of formal political
equality to women, and the practice of jailing or killing the state’s do-
mestic political opponents. We find support for the major power pres-
tige hypothesis in the latter two cases. In understanding some important
international outcomes, it makes sense to treat major powers less like
impenetrable ‘‘billiard balls,’’ distinguished only by their relative power,
and more like ‘‘snowflakes’’ with many relevant internal characteristics.
Most research on why regimes change, become more inclusive, or treat their citi-
zens in particular ways focuses on social, economic, and political developments
within particular states. Domestic influences may be the most important determi-
nants of state institutions and practices, but a growing body of research suggests
that international considerations also play a role. As Gleditsch (2002:13) points out,
the fact that democracies appear to have arisen in systemwide ‘‘waves’’ strongly
suggests that these developments are not entirely the result of independent internal
processes. The spread of other institutions and practices, such as the widespread
adoption of neoliberal economic policies during the last 20 years, may also reflect
international trends rather than simply separate domestic conditions in each state.
In this paper, we turn our attention to a type of diffusion that is deeply rooted in
the international relations literature, but has received relatively little empirical
scrutiny: the ‘‘prestige’’ of powerful states, which we take to mean the demonstra-
tion effect of their institutions and practices in the international system. Most
examinations of major powers understandably focus on their relative military, eco-
nomic, and political power rather than their internal characteristics. In terms of
Author’s note: Earlier versions of this paper were presented to the 2004 annual meeting of the Peace Science
Society (International), the world politics workshop at Binghamton University, and a colloquium in the Vanderbilt
University Department of Political Science. The authors would also like to thank Harvey Starr for his helpful
comments. The responsibility for any remaining errors is ours.
r 2007 International Studies Association.

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32 Billiard Balls or Snowflakes?
their internal institutions and practices, major powers have most often been treated
like Arnold Wolfers’ (1962:19) famous metaphorical billiard balls: ‘‘a closed, im-
permeable, and sovereign unit, completely separated from all other states.’’ Never-
theless, a number of writers approaching the issue from very different theoretical
perspectives have suggested that major powers may influence other states not only
through their economic or coercive power, but also through the prestige of their
institutions and practices. In this view, major powers effectively define international
standards of legitimacy, serving as models for other states. If this line of argument is
correct, then major powers, like snowflakes, may differ in ways that influence other
states, even if their power characteristics are the same. This paper will test the
argument that the prestige of major power institutions and practices influences
other states.
The analysis presented here will consider three different phenomena on which
the effects of major power prestige should be evident: the spread of democracy, the
extension of political equality to women, and the much less normatively desirable
practice of jailing or killing the state’s political opponents. While a research design
that focused on just one of these processes would permit a more extensive and
satisfying discussion of that phenomenon, it would not make for a better test of
common claims about major power prestige in the literature. These claims suggest
that the effects of major power prestige should extend to a wide range of insti-
tutions and practices, ranging from the trivial, such as the style of military uniforms,
to the profoundly important, such as the selection of governing institutions. Exam-
ining a single phenomenon would raise questions about whether the implications of
major power institutions and practices are really as widespread as these arguments
suggest. Testing the influence of major power prestige on all the outcomes to which
it is theoretically relevant is probably impossible. However, it is possible to test
whether it helps explain more than just a single phenomenon. Although limitations
of space prevent us from doing full justice to the three dependent variables con-
sidered here, the added leverage of a test that considers more than one outcome
makes this price worth paying. Fortunately for the interested reader, each of the
phenomena we will examine has generated a substantial body of research in its own
right.
The remainder of the paper proceeds as follows. First, we will explain the nature
of major power prestige and why so many authors have argued that it should
influence the institutions and practices of other states. Next, we will consider the
relationship between major power prestige and other diffusion processes, as well as
the possibility that the spread of major power institutions and practices stem from
these states’ promotional efforts rather than prestige effects. A convincing test of the
major power prestige hypothesis is not possible without taking these other pro-
cesses into account. The next section presents our research design for testing
whether major power institutions and practices have influenced the three processes
noted in the last paragraph. We then turn to our empirical results. A final section
summarizes and concludes.
Major Power Prestige and the Spread of Institutions and Practices

Why should the institutions and practices of major powers influence diffusion
processes more than those of other states? In general, claims about major power
prestige suggest that it is a type of demonstration effect stemming from the visibility
and success of these states. Existing work points to several complementary ways this
process works. First, because their actions have serious consequences for other
states, political actors all over the world have good reason to pay attention to
internal developments in major powers. For example, an American presidential
election is likely to receive much greater coverage outside the United States than
would a similar election in a smaller state because its outcome has more important

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BENJAMIN O. FORDHAM AND VICTOR ASAL 33
international consequences. For the same reason, American institutional innova-

tions are more likely to come to the attention of political actors elsewhere. These
domestic institutions are associated with the success of the United States, like other
major powers before it, in promoting its interests in the international system. Pol-
itical actors in other states thus have reasons to consider adopting them. To the
extent that demonstration effects matter, institutions and practices in the major
powers are more likely to trigger them.
Second, major power dominance of many important sources of information and
ideas further enhances their visibility and influence. Contemporary American
media outlets such as CNN are available all over the world. The American uni-
versity system draws students and faculty members from far beyond the borders of
the country. These facts, which stem more from the economic size of the country
than from government policies, enhance the international salience of issues and
perspectives prevalent in the United States. The United States is not unique among
major powers in this respect. British dominance of comparable sources of infor-
mation and ideas was widely notedFand often lamentedFby political actors in
other states during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Taylor
(2003:160) attributes British facility at propaganda during this period to several
important aspects of its economic and political power, including the technological
sophistication of the British press and the nation’s control over international com-
munications networks such as transoceanic cables. Arguing that Anglo-American
control of certain kinds of ideas constituted a major source of power, E. H. Carr
(2001 [1939]:79–80) focused on the ideas themselves rather than the means of
transmitting them. While the British were often able to identify their national pol-
icies with the greater good of humanity, ‘‘when the claim is translated into a foreign
language, the note seems forced, and the identification unconvincing, even to the
peoples concerned.’’ Carr explained this situation by pointing out that ‘‘current
theories of international morality have been designed to perpetuate their suprem-
acy and expressed in the idiom peculiar to them.’’
Third, in addition to the consequences of their economic size and political im-
portance, major powers intentionally cultivate their international image through
what Morgenthau (1993 [1948]:84–98) called the ‘‘policy of prestige.’’ Morgenthau
argued that major powers sought to build an image for themselves through displays
of military power, insistence upon formal shows of respect for their representatives,
and the pronouncements of their leaders. These are all designed to impress foreign
political actors with the invincibility of the state’s military power, the inviolability of
its commitments, and the superiority of its institutions and values. Although they
sometimes go together, these policies differ from efforts explicitly to persuade other
states to adopt their institutions and practices, an issue to which we will return later.
Realist writers like Carr and Morgenthau are by no means alone in making these
claims about the prestige of major powers. Theorists from very different schools of
thought have made parallel arguments. For example, some constructivists suggest
that the example set by prominent statesFthose that have been especially suc-
cessful or strongFwill influence the behaviors other states find acceptable. Florini
(1996:375) argues that ‘‘[i]nternational norms may also begin to spread in the
absence of a norm entrepreneur if some states simply emulate the behavior of some
prestigious or otherwise well-known actor, even if the emulated actor is not at-
tempting to communicate its behavior.’’ Ikenberry and Kupchan (1990:283) also
emphasize both the material foundation of hegemonic power and its ideological
consequences, just as Carr and Morgenthau did: ‘‘Elites in secondary states buy into
and internalize norms that are articulated by the hegemon and therefore pursue
policies that are consistent with the hegemon’s notion of world order.’’
Although their normative assessment of the role of especially powerful states is
much darker, neo-Gramscian theorists make strikingly similar substantive claims
about the influence of these states. Where Gramsci focused on relations among

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classes within the state, Robert Cox and others have applied his arguments to the
international arena (e.g., Cox 1981; Abrahamsen 1997; Bieler and Morton 2004).
For neo-Gramscians, hegemony is based not only on powerful states’ efforts to
enforce their will but also on social structures that create a consensus shared by the
weak as well as by the strong. ‘‘It appears as an expression of broadly based consent,
manifested in the acceptance of ideas and supported by material resources and
institutions, which is initially established by social forces occupying a leading role
within a state but is then projected outwards on a world scale’’ (Bieler and Morton
2004:87). The norms reflect a consensus that serves the interest of the strong and
perpetuates their power.
The question of whether major powers influence the internal characteristics of
other states bears on recent debates over American foreign policy. The end of the
Cold War and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union have been hailed by
many influential Western observers as heralding the worldwide triumph of dem-
ocratic capitalism. These observers generally suggest that, with the failure of the
Soviet model, alternatives to Western-style democracy and the market economy
have been thoroughly delegitimized. They point to the fact that the Soviet collapse
was followed by the emergence of democraciesFsome rather imperfect, to be
sureFin many of the states that were formerly part of the Soviet Union or its
sphere of influence. Some have suggested that the spread of American power holds
out the promise of strengthening democracy all over the world. The Bush admin-
istration has embraced this point of view and made it the centerpiece of its foreign
policy. Given its importance in both international relations theory and contempor-
ary American foreign policy, the hypothesis that major power institutions and
practices influence those of other states deserves more rigorous empirical testing
than it has received.
Alternative Arguments About the Diffusion of Institutions and Practices

Major power prestige is by no means the only medium through which institutions
and practices can spread across national borders. The major power prestige hy-
pothesis refers to only one type of diffusion, what Harvey Starr (1991:360) has
labeled a ‘‘global demonstration effect.’’ As Starr’s work shows, diffusion can take
many other forms. While a full catalogue of the ways in which behaviors of various
sorts can spread through the international system is beyond the scope of this paper,
three other arguments must be considered in order to design a convincing em-
pirical test of the major power prestige hypothesis. First, major power institutions
and practices may spread more because these states adopt policies to promote them
than because other states view them as prestigious and legitimate. Second, existing
empirical support for diffusion through geographic proximity suggests that an
empirical analysis that ignored this process might produce spurious results sup-
porting the major power prestige hypothesis. Third, the literature on transnational
social movements suggests that claims about major power prestige exaggerate the
importance of these states for international norm diffusion.
Prestige or Promotion?
Major power institutions and practices may spread because of major power policies
to promote them, regardless of whether they are legitimate or prestigious in the
states considering their adoption. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States
has made the promotion of democracy and free-market capitalism major foreign
policy goals. Many states condition their foreign assistance on the adoption of in-
stitutions and practices in recipient states that mirror their own. The fact that major
powers intentionally seek to spread their institutions and practices raises an im-
portant question: to the extent that major power institutions and practices spread,

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does this outcome reflect their prestige in the eyes of political actors in other states
or overt promotional efforts by the major powers?
It is important to distinguish between broad efforts to promote the state’s im-
ageFMorgenthau’s ‘‘policy of prestige’’Fand narrower foreign policies intended
to achieve specific outcomes. The prestige effect discussed here stems from the
belief, in the minds of those considering their adoption, that particular institutions
and practices are more legitimate or successful than alternatives. This process can
be distinguished from instances where major powers use sanctions and incentives to
persuade otherwise reluctant states to imitate their domestic characteristics. Major
power policies that seek to burnish the image of their institutions and practices
are part of the process we hope to test here, but the use of sanctions and incentives
is not.
These two policies do not always fit neatly together. Even as they proclaim the
superiority of their institutions, major powers may undertake policies that under-
mine these arrangements in other states. For example, just as American Cold War
foreign policy did not advance democracy in every case, Soviet foreign policy did
not always rule out cooperation with less-than-revolutionary political actors. In
neither case did contradictory policies in specific instances lessen the two states’
broader efforts to enhance the prestige of their institutions and values.
Although hypocrisy is not uncommon, powerful states usually view the imitation
of their domestic arrangements as a desirable thing, and frequently undertake
policies to promote it. To the extent that prestige effects overlap with the use of
sanctions and incentives to promote particular institutions and practices, apparent
evidence of major power prestige may actually reflect the impact of their foreign
policy. In the next section, we set out a strategy for controlling the influence of this
alternative causal process in our empirical test.
Geographic Diffusion
Recent empirical research strongly supports the claim that geography has influ-
enced the spread of democracy. Geographic proximity to another democracy
increases the chances that a country will democratize (Gleditsch and Ward 2001b;
Starr and Lindborg 2003). Cederman and Gleditsch (2004:605) point out that
[t]he likelihood that a state chosen at random at a given point in time will be a
democracy varies notably depending on whether its geographically proximate
neighboring states are democratic or not. The probability that a randomly
selected state is a democracy by usual criteria in the widely used Polity data in
a given year is about .30. However, the probability increases to .84 when the
average level of democracy among geographical neighbors exceeds the common
democracy threshold.
In the article quoted above, Cederman and Gleditsch suggest that the collective
security efforts of many democratic states may give democracies an evolutionary
advantage when they are geographically clustered together. There are other the-
oretical processes that could contribute to the same outcome, however. Gleditsch
(2002:31–63) argues that, because states are almost always more tightly integrated
with their immediate neighbors, the pacifying effects associated with both trade and
democracy are more likely to be evident within regional groups of states. O’Lough-
lin et al. (1998) similarly suggest that the adoption of particular institutions and
practices by neighboring states helps demonstrate the appropriateness of these
institutions and practices for the special conditions prevailing in the rest of the
region.
Although there is ample evidence to support the geographic diffusion hypo-
thesis, the relative importance of the various processes that might produce it is less

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clear. Geographic proximity might matter because of greater economic contact,

cultural similarity rooted in a common history, more frequent person-to-person
contact between individuals living relatively close to one another, common expos-
ure to exogenous influences of various kinds, or some combination of these and
other considerations. Furthermore, some have disputed the importance of geo-
graphic proximity, arguing that global changes in the level of democracy may have
a larger impact (e.g., Most and Starr 1990; Starr 1991; Starr and Lindborg 2003).
Geographic and nongeographic diffusion processes, such as major power prestige
effects, arguably need to be considered side by side. Overall, as Whitehead
(1999:79) points out, we still need a better ‘‘account of the mechanisms involved.’’
Specifying and testing the potentially different empirical implications of various
processes is an important challenge for future research on geographic diffusion.
Our principal concern here is to distinguish the effect of major power prestige from
this alternative diffusion process.
Transnational Social Movements

Another line of argument concerning the impact of international considerations on
the spread of domestic institutions and practices centers on the role of transnational
social movements. Finnemore and Sikkink (1998) focus on the efforts of ‘‘norm
entrepreneurs,’’ who build support for ideas favoring particular institutions and
practices both domestically and internationally. They suggest that, once the number
of states that have accepted a particular set of norms reaches a tipping point, the
new norms become expected behavior for all states. Afterwards, they expect to
observe a ‘‘norm cascade’’ in which the new standard of behavior spreads rapidly
through the international system (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Schmitz and Sik-
kink 2002). Both states that have accepted the new norms and the nonstate groups
promoting them act to socialize states that are yet to adopt the new standards. ‘‘In
the context of international politics, socialization involves diplomatic praise or cen-
sure, either bilateral or multilateral, which is reinforced by material sanctions and
incentives’’ (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998:902). However, threats and rewards are
less important to this process than the legitimacy of the norms themselves. States
emulate particular institutions and practices because they ‘‘seem’’ right.
The role of social movements has been especially prominent in research on the
spread of women’s suffrage (e.g., Banaszak 1996; Ramirez and McEneaney 1997;
Ramirez, Soysal, and Shanahan 1997; Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Keck and
Sikkink 1998; Pernet 2000). The quantitative analysis presented by Ramirez, Soy-
sal, and Shanahan (1997) is a good example. The authors argue that, before 1930,
women’s suffrage spread mostly due to political modernization in the West, the
spread of the welfare state, and the growth of national organizations dedicated to
the advancement of women. They place an especially strong emphasis on the role
of transnational social movements during this early period, especially participation
in the Women’s International Suffrage Alliance of 1906. By 1930, they argue that
these international movements had made female suffrage a ‘‘taken for granted
feature of national citizenship.’’
Proximity is not necessary for transnational social movements to have an effect;
hence, this line of argument is not simply another mechanism to explain geo-
graphic diffusion. Ties of language, ethnicity, and the like, that facilitate commu-
nication between participants in the social movement in different areas of the
world, may be more important. Rupp (1997:51–81) emphasizes the importance of
these considerations in the spread of the international women’s movement during
the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The movement was dominated by
European and American women, and spread most rapidly to areas of the world
with linguistic and ethnic ties to European states.

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One thing the otherwise quite different bodies of research on geographic dif-
fusion and transnational social movements have in common is that neither accords
much role to the relative power of the states involved. Most work on geographic
diffusion is simply focused on a different mechanism for the spread of institutions
and practices, and says little about the role of especially powerful states. On the
other hand, those emphasizing transnational social movements have been more
explicitly skeptical of the role of major powers. Citing the work discussed in the last
section, Finnemore and Sikkink (1998:896) write that the spread of women’s suf-
frage ‘‘was not a case of ‘hegemonic socialization.’’’ While they concede that some
‘‘critical states’’ may be more important than others in the diffusion process, the
examples given are rarely major powers. For example, Finnemore and Sikkink
(1998:901) point to the moral authority of South Africa under Nelson Mandela in
making it a potentially critical state. They also pointedly note that the norm against
the use of land mines cascaded through the international system in spite of the
opposition of the United States.1
Arguments about major power promotional efforts, geographic diffusion, and
transnational social movements are important here because they suggest alternative
explanations for the diffusion of institutions and practices. These alternatives must
be considered when designing an empirical test of the major power prestige hy-
pothesis. Geographic diffusion and major power promotional efforts are likely to be
correlated with major power prestige, so they must be incorporated into the model
in order to avoid spurious inference. The skepticism of the transnational social
movements literature suggests several tests of the robustness of the evidence sup-
porting the influence of major power prestige.
Testing the Influence of Major Power Prestige

In this section, we set out a research design for testing the major power prestige
hypothesis. A reasonable test must consider which states are major powers and how
to aggregate their institutional characteristics. It must also include controls for
other influences on the spread of institutions and practices that might otherwise
provide spurious evidence in support of major power prestige.
Measuring Major Power Characteristics

In order to test whether the characteristics of the major powers influence the
institutions and practices of other states, several preliminary questions first require
answers. First, what states are major powers? In the empirical analysis presented
here, we employ the states identified as major powers by the Correlates of War
project, listed in Table 1. While this list could certainly be contested, it contains no
obvious bias in favor of the hypotheses we test here. The states on it have undeni-
ably been very important players in the international system. To the extent that
some did not actually enjoy the prestige associated with major power status, or
other states that are not included on this list did, our hypothesis tests should be less
likely to find statistically significant relationships.
A second research design question concerns the best way to measure and ag-
gregate the characteristics of the major powers. The literature on major power
prestige is largely silent on this question. For example, as we noted in the opening
section, E. H. Carr states that the English-speaking powers have had unusual
1
To be sure, proponents of the transnational social movements hypothesis do not deny that major powers can
play a role in the process they discuss. Keck and Sikkink (1998:12–13) note that other states may be used by
transnational social movements to put material pressure on states that refuse to abide by particular norms. Although
material power of states may play a role in this process, the prestige of their institutions and practices is not
discussed.

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TABLE 1. Major Powers Identified by the Correlates of War Project
State Years as a Major Power
Austria–Hungary 1816–1918
France 1816–1940; 1945–
Prussia/Germany 1816–1918; 1925–1945; 1991–
Russia/U.S.S.R. 1816–1917; 1922–
United Kingdom 1816–
Italy 1860–1943
Japan 1895–1945; 1991–
United States 1898–
China 1950–
influence over international norms, but offers no systematic explanation for this
outcome. In the absence of a well-developed argument in the literature on major
power prestige, we will try three plausible approaches. The simplest of these is to
examine the proportion of the major powers that have a particular institution, such
as political equality for women, or engage in a particular practice, such as purging
opponents of the regime. This approach implies that the major powers are roughly
equal in the eyes of other states contemplating the adoption of their institutions and
practices.
A second approach suggests that more powerful states are more prestigious. In
order to weight the major powers according to their relative economic and military
potential, we will employ the composite index of national capabilities (CINC) de-
veloped by the Correlates of War project (Singer 1987; Correlates of War Project
2004). The weight for each major power in each year is its share of the total CINC
scores of all the major powers in that year. The CINC scores are based on each
state’s share of the systemwide totals in six indices relevant to military power:
military spending, military personnel, urban population, total population, energy
consumption, and iron and steel production. In this context, perhaps the most
important advantage of this widely used index is that it is available for nearly every
state in the international system for a very long period of time. This advantage is
not shared by other indicators of material power, such as Gross Domestic Product.
A third approach to Great-Power influence is to assume that it diminishes with
geographic distance. Major powers may be most prestigious within their own
geographic neighborhood because nearby states are more likely to have political,
economic, and cultural contact with them. We used Gleditsch and Ward’s (2001a,
2001b) data on minimum geographic distance to compute weights for each major
power-minor power dyad-year. The weight is 1=logðDÞ, where D is the minimum
distance between the two states in the dyad in kilometers. The log of zero is as-
signed a value of 1, so that contiguous states have a weight of 1. States further away
have diminishing values. For example, a major power 500 km away would receive a
weight of approximately 0.37. Because there are no data on minimum distances
longer than 1,000 km, dyads at least 1,000 km apart are all assigned a value of
1,000. This weight was then divided by the sum of the weights for all the major
powers in that state-year, so that the weights of the major powers sum to 1 in each
case. This approach allows the relevant political environment of each state to vary
rather than simply assigning each state to an arbitrary region. It allows for a more
realistic treatment of states that are part of more than one region, as the former
Soviet Union was, or that sit on the borders between them, as Turkey does.
Including Alternatives to Major Power Prestige

A second modeling issue concerns the relationship between major power prestige
and diffusion processes based on major power promotional efforts, geographic

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proximity, and transnational social movements. The best way to sort out the con-
founding influence of major power foreign policies intended to spread their in-
stitutions and practices from the effects of prestige would be to include variables in
the model that capture these promotional efforts. This solution is simple enough in
principle, but quite difficult to implement in practice. Because the institutions and
practices of the major powers as a group vary only over time, not across space, data
from a relatively long period are needed in order to test its effects. Major powers
have had many policy instruments available to them during the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. Not all these instruments are easy to observe, and the relative
effectiveness of foreign aid, gunboat diplomacy, propaganda, and other instru-
ments has changed over time.
The modeling strategy used here will be to use alliances as markers for major
powers efforts to exert special influence. Alliances between major powers and other
states often involve policy concessions by the minor power in exchange for security
guarantees from the more powerful state (Altfeld 1984; Morrow 1991; Siverson and
Starr 1994). These asymmetric alliances often come with foreign aid and other
enticements that could be used by the major power to persuade its minor power
ally to adopt its institutions and practices, if doing so is indeed a priority for major
power policy makers. If a state adopts the institutions and practices of its major
power allies, it may well be doing so in response to policy pressures of this sort
rather than simply because it perceives these institutions as more prestigious or
legitimate than the available alternatives. In order to capture this effect, the
models of whether a state adopts a particular institution or practice will include a
variable indicating the proportion of each state’s major power allies who have
adopted it.2
As we noted in the last section, research on geographic diffusion rarely considers
the character of the most powerful states. Nevertheless, even though these claims
about the international spread of institutions and practices are different, they are
not mutually exclusive. It is possible that both effects are real. This possibility has
important implications for testing claims about the impact of major powers.
Geographic diffusion processes are likely to influence the major powers as well as
other states. If they do, a statistical model that included only indicators of the major
power characteristics might find a spurious relationship between those character-
istics and similar features of other states, even if the characteristics of the major
powers were actually irrelevant. In order to avoid this kind of spurious inference,
our models will include a geographic diffusion process as well as variables reflecting
the characteristics of the major powers.
Although there is ample evidence of geographic diffusion in phenomena
such as the spread of democracy, other forms of diffusion are possible. For
example, international trading and communications networks are arguably
stronger between relatively distant developed states, such as the United States
and Japan, than between either of these states and less developed countries that
happen to be geographically closer. Similarly, the existence of a common language
based on prior colonial rule might be just as important as geographic distance in
accounting for the spread of some institutions and practices. In principle, it
would make sense to explore alternative specifications of the diffusion process
in order to check the robustness of findings concerning the role of the
major powers. While we recognize these concerns, there is little we can do to
allay them. Data on bilateral trade, a logical candidate for measuring the
level of contact between states, are quite sparse for the pre-World War II
2
In the empirical analysis that follows, a state is defined as an ally if it has a defense pact according to the
Correlates of War Formal Alliance data set, version 3.03 (Gibler and Sarkees 2004). Compared to less binding types
of alliances, defense pacts are very likely to represent valuable security commitments, as well as to be accompanied
by foreign aid and other things the major power may use as instruments of influence.

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era.3 Data on other types of cross-border linkages are generally even less abundant.
Geographic diffusion has the considerable advantage of being free of missing data.
Arguments concerning transnational social movements have somewhat different
implications for our effort to estimate the effect of major power prestige. They do
not suggest a potentially confounding independent variable. If social movements
act in ways that are largely unrelated to the relative power of particular states, then
omitting this process from the model should not prevent us from estimating the
separate effect of major power prestige. If, on the other hand, participation in
transnational social movements is related to major power prestige, it would almost
certainly be because successful movements of this sort are more likely to arise in
major powers. Reversing the causal arrow is implausible. States do not become
major powers because their citizens are especially active in transnational social
movements. In this case, the effects of transnational social movements are best
understood as a transmission mechanism for major power prestige. Because in-
volvement in transnational social movements would intervene between major
power prestige and the institutions and practices of other states, including
them in a single-equation model would underestimate the total effect of major
power prestige.
As the literature cited in the last section indicates, those who have written about
transnational social movements do not see them as a transmission process for the
influence of major powers. Instead, they claim that norms are created and trans-
mitted through an entirely different process, and that this process often supersedes
the influence of major powers. In principle, it would make sense to test the per-
formance of a model based on the influence of transnational social movements in
each state against those that will be estimated here. Unfortunately, we lack the data
with which to conduct such a test. However, we will test the skepticism of major
power influence found in this literature by comparing models emphasizing major
power influence with alternatives that exclude this process.
Empirical Analysis
In this section, we will present the results of several tests of the effect of major
power institutions and practices on the spread of these same institutions and prac-
tices to other states. We will consider the diffusion of two institutionsFdemocracy
and women’s political equalityFand one political practiceFthe jailing or killing of
those who oppose the regime in power. Our very brief treatment of them here does
not do justice to the substantive importance of these three phenomena. Our interest
is in testing whether the characteristics of the major powers influenced the spread
of phenomena like these rather than in these particular institutions and practices.
Although we prefer to keep our model specification as parsimonious as possible, we
will include variables representing geographic diffusion in order to ensure that our
results do not simply reflect this process.4
Major Powers and the Spread of Democracy

Do democratic institutions in the major powers serve as models for other states? If
the arguments about major power prestige reviewed in the first part of this paper
3
Missing observations plague even the relatively extensive trade data gathered by Russett and Oneal (2001).
Among dyads of system members, 70.1 percent of observations are missing for the 1885–1913 period, 31.4 percent
for the 1920–1938 period, but only 8.9 percent for the 1950–1992 period. (All observations are missing for the
period of the two world wars.) The fact that the observations are not missing at random, but rather are correlated
with time, poses special statistical problems.
4
Although it makes sense to control for potential confounding influences on our dependent variables, recent
research suggests that adding additional control variables simply because they may be related to the dependent
variable carries dangers of its own (e.g., Achen 2002; Ray 2003; Clarke 2005).

on 06 February 2018
are correct, then the prevalence of democracy among major powers should in-
crease the international prestige and legitimacy of these institutions, making it
more likely that those who seek their adoption in other states will succeed. The
greater legitimacy of these institutions should also facilitate their survival once they
have been put in place. Of course, previous research on this topic has emphasized
other factors. Our interest here is in assessing the role of Great-Power prestige
rather than in challenging this work. We will examine data on democracy for all
independent states from 1816 through 2000. We will use one especially common
contributing factor, per capita income, to check the robustness of our findings using
data from 1950 through 2000.5
In order to test the hypothesis that major power democracy contributes to the
spread of democratic institutions to other states, we estimated the transition model
Beck et al. (2001) recommend. The processes that contribute to the adoption of
democratic institutions may differ from those that determine whether it persists.
Examining the process of state failure, Beck and his co-authors begin with a similar
argument. They point out that the factors contributing to a transition into this
condition (state failure) may differ from those that shape a state’s transition back
into its original condition. The transition model they recommend is similar to those
employed by Przeworski et al. (2000) and Gleditsch and Ward (2004), estimating
separate transition probabilities for the onset and the collapse of democratic rule.
The dependent variable in our analysis is the presence or absence of democratic
institutions as indicated by a score of 6 or higher on the 10 (pure autocracy) to 10
(pure democracy) scale developed by the Polity IV project (Marshall and Jaggers
2003). Estimates of the probability of a transition from a nondemocracy to a de-
mocracy are based on all observations in which the state was a nondemocracy in the
previous year. Estimates of the probability of the collapse of democracy are based
on those observations in which the state was a democracy in the previous year. In
order to control for time dependence in this binary time-series cross-sectional data
set, we will also employ the technique suggested by Beck, Katz, and Tucker (1998),
adding three temporal splines and variables indicating the number of years the
country has spent a democracy or nondemocracy.
Table 2 presents the results of the two models. Several aspects of these findings
are worth emphasizing. First, the estimated effect of democracy among the major
powers on the probability of a transition to democracy in other states was substan-
tively important compared to the competing effects we estimated. Holding other
variables at their mean values, the predicted probability of a transition to democ-
racy increased from .003 when no major powers are democratic to .032 when all of
them were, a tenfold increase. By comparison, the effect of major power democ-
racies on their allies was somewhat smaller, roughly doubling from .009 when no
major power allies were democratic to .016 when all of them were. On the other
hand, geographic diffusion had larger effects. When none of the states within
500 km were democracies, the estimated probability of a democratic transition was
.005. When all of these states were democratic, the probability was .095, 18 times
greater.
5
Economic development is one of the most common considerations linked to the growth of political democracy
(e.g., Lipset 1960; Bollen 1979; Rueschemeyer, Stephens, and Stephens 1992; Burkhart and Lewis-Beck 1994;
Helliwell 1994; Boix and Stokes 2003). Some authors have pointed out that this relationship may not hold true for
all regions of the world (Mainwaring and Perez-Linan 2003) while others have pointed out that income inequality
may have a mediating effect (Muller 1995). Przeworski et al. (2000) offer an important challenge to those who
emphasize economic development, arguing that previous research has important methodological flaws and that,
when analyzed correctly, there is no evidence that economic development leads to democracy. On the other hand,
Przeworski and his colleagues agree that countries that are democracies are more likely to survive as democracies,
the higher their economic development. In addition to economic development, researchers have explored a variety
of other causes of democratization including political attitudes (Almond and Verba 1989), interelite relations
(Rustow 1970), social structures (Moore 1966), and military conquest (Whitehead 2001).

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TABLE 2. Probit Results on the Onset and Collapse of Democracy, 1816–2000
Onset of Democracy in Collapse of Democracy in

Independent Variable Autocracies Democracies
Proportion of democracies 0.91n (0.39) 1.18n (0.65) 0.22 (0.43) 0.48 (0.83)
among major powers
Proportion of democracies 0.19n (0.10) 0.39n (0.10) 0.22 (0.14) 0.14 (0.17)
among major power allies
Proportion of democracies 1.22n (0.14) 0.92n (0.17) 0.66n (0.18) 0.26 (0.26)
among states within 500 km
Real per capita income 0.02n (0.01) 0.17n (0.05)
in thousands of dollars
Years as autocracy 0.06n (0.02) 0.06n (0.02)
Years as democracy 0.05 (0.03) 0.11n (0.05)
Number of previous transitions 0.11 (0.07) 0.11n (0.08)
to democracy
Number of previous democratic 0.02 (0.08) 0.06 (0.13)
collapses
Constant 2.44n (0.24) 2.60n (0.39) 1.41n (0.28) 1.76n (0.51)
States 158 139 97 91
n 7,005 4,083 2,644 1,785
Model BIC Statistic
Comparing alternative models of democratic onset:

Model with no variable indicating major power institutions 108.680
Time trend instead of characteristics of major powers or other states 108.046
Alternative aggregations of major power institutions:
Proportion of democracies among major powers 107.928
CINC-weighted democratic proportion of major powers 104.712
Geographically weighted democratic proportion of major powers 100.117
Note: Robust standard errors are in parentheses.

n
Indicates statistical significance at the po.05 level. Lower BIC statistics indicate better model performance. Raftery
(1995) suggests that differences of 0–2 weakly support the lower scoring model, differences of 2–6 indicate positive
support, 6–10 strong support, and differences of greater than 10 very strong support. The model includes three
temporal splines, which are not reported for reasons of space.
Second, as the model comparison statistics reported at the foot of the table in-
dicate, the simple, unweighted measure of the proportion of major power dem-
ocracies worked best as a basis for modeling the influence of major power
institutions. The Bayesian information criterion (BIC) statistic is lower for the
model that measured major power characteristics using this index.6 The appeal of
major power democracy as a model was not strictly a function of either its material
capabilities or its geographic proximity to the state in question.
Although it influenced the transition to democracy, the proportion of
major powers that were democracies had no effect on the probability that democ-
racy would survive in a given year. The institutions of major power allies also had
no statistically significant effect here. By contrast, the regional prevalence of
6
The Bayesian information criterion permits the comparison of both nested and non-nested models. As Long
(1997:111) describes it, the criterion ‘‘assesses whether [a model] performs well enough to justify the number of
parameters that are used.’’ A lower BIC indicates better performance; if it is greater than zero, a null model is
preferable. The difference between the BIC of the models in Table 1 can be used to assess their relative perform-
ance. Long (1997:112) and Clarke (2001:738) both use Raftery’s (1995) criterion for assessing relative performance.
Differences of 0–2 weakly support the lower scoring model, differences of 2–6 indicate positive support, 6–10 strong
support, and differences of greater than 10 very strong support.

on 06 February 2018
democracy influenced both transitions in the expected way, making both a tran-
sition to democracy and the persistence of these institutions more likely. This result
suggests that the impact of major power prestige and policy on the spread of
democracy has been somewhat superficial. Democracies may have been established
partly as a response to the prestige of these institutions among the major powers,
but the resulting institutions did not last any longer simply because most major
powers were democracies. Similarly, major powers may have sought to preserve
democracy among their allies, but these efforts have not met with enough success to
produce a statistically significant relationship on our model. Although the model
indicates that a world dominated by democratic major powers is good for the
adoption of democracy, it may not be decisive in the face of very unfavorable
domestic political or economic considerations. Moreover, as we will explain shortly,
there are additional reasons for skepticism about the effect of major power prestige
on democratic onset.
We checked the robustness of our results in several ways. First, we estimated an
expanded model that included per capita income, a consideration widely found to
influence the growth of political democracy.7 Although this modification to the
model results in the loss of a large portion of the data, it does not alter the results in
any substantively important way. The proportion of democracies among the major
powers has somewhat larger effects in this model, but this is due more to the loss of
pre-World War II data than to the inclusion of per capita income. When we re-
estimated the model on the same set of observations but excluded per capita in-
come, the coefficients on the proportion of democracies among the major powers
were nearly identical. This result is not surprising. There is little reason to
think that the major power democracy influences per capita income cross-nation-
ally, something that would have to be true in order to produce a specification
error.
Other robustness checks turned up greater cause for concern. These checks are
presented in the model comparison statistics reported at the foot of Table 2. The
first comparison model, which represents the skeptical perspective found in the
transnational social movements literature, is especially striking. It indicates that a
model without any variable measuring major power institutions performed slightly
better than any model that included such a variable, with a BIC that was 0.752
lower than that of the model presented in the table. This result constitutes only
weak support for the skeptical model, but it certainly injects a strong note of caution
into any conclusions one might draw about major power prestige based on the
results in Table 2.
Another potential problem with the estimated effect of major power institutions
stems from the fact that this systemic consideration varies only over time, not over
space; hence, it may be capturing the effect of some correlated systemic patterns not
considered here. This is especially worrisome because the proportion of major
power democracies contains a clear, though not monotonic, upward trend over
time. Figure 1 shows this trend. One can imagine many other considerations that
contain such a trend, some of which are probably related to the probability of a
democratic transition. In order to test the explanatory contribution of the dem-
ocratic share of the major powers, we substituted a simple time trend for this
variable in the model presented in Table 2, and computed a BIC statistic in order to
assess the performance of this alternative model. The model containing the
time trend produced a BIC that was 0.118 lower, providing weak support for
the time trend model over the democratic major power model. Because the simple
time trend is atheoretical, this finding does not really supersede the major power
democracy hypothesis. However, it suggests that this way of aggregating the
7
Data on per capita income are from the Penn World Tables, version 6.1, which covers the 1950–2000 period
(Heston, Summers, and Aten 2002).

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1
0.9
Democratic Proportion of Major Powers
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
1816
1824
1832
1840
1848
1856
1864
1872
1880
1888
1896
1904
1912
1920
1928
1936
1944
1952
1960
1968
1976
1984
1992
2000
FIG 1. The Democratic Share of Major Powers
characteristics of the major powers is crude, and raises the possibility that some
other systemic variable might better account for the increasing probability of a
democratic transition. Overall, the strongest conclusion that can be safely drawn
from these results is that, while major power democracy may make the advent of
democracy in other states more likely, there are good reasons for skepticism about
this effect.
Major Powers and the Formal Political Equality for Women

Our second test of the major power prestige hypothesis concerns formal political
equality for women. We will examine formal political equality, which includes the
ability to hold office and the absence of voter qualification tests based on gender,
rather than suffrage. Many states continued to restrict women’s political partici-
pation even after granting them the right to vote. For example, some states that
permitted women to vote did not allow them to run for office. Others imposed a
higher property qualification on women than on men. Because of the wide range of
limits on women’s political rights even in states that granted suffrage, full formal
equality is a less ambiguous condition than suffrage. We code women as having full
formal equality if there were no gender-based restrictions for voting or running for
office according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (2004). The data used here cover
all independent states from 1885 through 2000.
The spread of formal political equality for women, like the spread of democracy,
is an important issue in its own right.8 Because our central concern is with the
effects of major power prestige rather than equality, however, the analysis pre-
sented here does not do justice to this issue. For one thing, formal equality is not
necessarily equivalent to actual equality, and discrimination against women cer-
tainly outlived formal inequality. Our interest here is in whether the major powers’
institutional rules on this issue influenced those of other states, even if formal
equality was less than completely meaningful in practice. Formal equality is well
suited to an analysis of major power prestige for at least one reason that may not be
8
As several scholars have pointed out, women’s political equality has not been as widely studied as other aspects
of the extension of democracy (Poe, Wendel-Blunt, and Ho 1997; Kenworthy and Malami 1999). Nevertheless,
previous research suggests a variety of explanations for the extension of political rights to women, such as those
cited earlier in our discussion of the literature on transnational social movements.

on 06 February 2018
immediately obvious. While major power democracies may have self-interested

reasons for promoting or hindering the spread of democracy in other states, they
have fewer self-interested reasons for encouraging or holding up the spread of
female political equality. This dependent variable thus arguably provides a
better chance to capture the effects of the prestigeFas opposed to the policiesFof
the major powers. If the extension of formal equality within the major powers
increases the prestige or legitimacy of this institution, then the proportion of major
powers granting full equality should influence the probability that other states
will do so.
Because we could find no state that revoked formal equality once it had been
extended, we estimated only the probability of a transition to political equality. As
with the model of democratic transitions presented in Table 2, we employed the
method suggested by Beck et al. (2001) in order to examine the effect of major
power practices on those of other states. In order to represent temporal depend-
ence, the probit model once again includes three temporal splines and a variable
counting the number of years the state had been independent since 1885 without
granting formal equality. It also contains a geographic diffusion variable in the form
of the proportion of states within 500 km granting political equality. Table 3 pres-
ents the results.
Evidence concerning the influence of major power prestige on the spread of
formal political equality for women is stronger than that concerning the spread of
democracy. Major power institutions had a statistically significant and substantively
meaningful effect on the probability that other states would adopt these institutions.
A shift in the practice of all the major powers would increase the transition prob-
ability by about six times, from roughly .004 to .024. On the other hand, the
proportion of major power allies with political equality had no statistically signif-
icant effect; hence, there is no evidence of major power promotional activity in this
case comparable to what we found for the transition to democracy. As in the case of
TABLE 3. Probit Results on the Adoption of Formal Political Equality for Women, 1885–2000
Independent Variable
Proportion of major powers with formal political equality for women 0.73n (0.22)
Proportion of major power allies with formal political equality for women 0.01 (0.13)
Proportion of states among states within 500 km granting formal equality 1.30n (0.22)
Years of independence since 1885 without granting formal equality 0.23n (0.03)
Constant 1.61n (0.14)
States 153
n 3,168
Model BIC Statistic
Comparing alternative models of formal political equality for women:

Model with no variable indicating major power institutions 389.870
Time trend instead of characteristics of major powers or other states 394.913
Alternative aggregations of major power institutions:
Proportion of major powers with formal political equality for women 395.852
CINC-weighted proportion of major powers with formal political equality for women 394.292
Geographically weighted proportion of major powers with formal political equality 396.078
for women

n
support, 6–10 strong support, and differences of greater than 10 very strong support. The model includes three
temporal splines, which are not reported for reasons of space.

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the spread of democracy, the geographic diffusion process had a larger impact.
A shift in the proportion of states granting formal equality from 0 to 1 would make
the transition probability roughly 24 times greater, increasing it from .003 to .072.
Finally, all three measures of major power influence produced statistically significant
results. Although we report those from the model employing the simple proportion
of major powers in Table 2, weighting the major powers by their geographic prox-
imity or material power produced slightly stronger models. BIC statistics for the
comparison of these nonnested models are reported at the foot of the table.
In one important respect, the model of major power influence on formal equality
performs better than did the model of the spread of democracy. While both
the skeptical model with no major power variables at all and the model employing
the simple time trend performed marginally better than the model employing the
democratic share of major powers, this is not the case with respect to full equality
for women. The BIC statistic for the model employing the proportion of major
powers extending political equality to women was 5.982 points lower than that of
the skeptical model, and 0.939 points lower than the time-trend model. These
results provide positive and weak support, respectively, for the major power pres-
tige model, according to Raftery’s (1995) criterion.
Major Powers and the Practice of Purging Political Opponents

Both democracy and formal equality are sets of institutional rules. The argument
about major power prestige applies to political practices as well as institutions, how-
ever. If activities carried out by major powers are more likely to be perceived as
legitimate and acceptable, then practices such as the jailing or killing of political
opponents of the regime should also spread in the same way. We selected this de-
pendent variable not only because, as a political practice rather than an institutional
rule, it differs from the other two dependent variables examined here but also be-
cause we want to underscore the fact that major power prestige is not exclusively a
vehicle for the spread of normatively desirable outcomes. This point is perhaps
obvious, but we think it bears repeating. We use Arthur Banks’ coding of ‘‘purges,’’
which is included in the Logic of Political Survival Data (Bueno de Mesquita et al.
2003). The data cover all independent states over the 1919–1999 period.
Because purges are discrete acts rather than institutional arrangements that
persist until they are changed, we selected a different model that better represents
this process. Table 4 presents the results of a times-series cross-sectional probit
model. The model estimates the effect of major power political purges, lagged 1
year, on the probability that similar purges will be carried out in other states. It also
includes a geographic diffusion variable indicating the proportion of states within
500 km carrying out these purges.
Beyond the variables just noted, which were included in the previous models, the
fact that purges are a political practice rather than an institution prompted us to
add two additional variables. First, because institutions should constrain practices,
we include the Polity score for each state. Theoretically, democratic institutions
should inhibit states from purging their political opponents, even if they do not
entirely rule out the possibility (e.g., Poe and Tate 1994; Poe, Tate, and Keith 1999;
Zanger 2000). Failing to include this variable would raise the possibility that an
estimated relationship between major power purges and those in other states might
really reflect the spread of major power democracy rather than the influence of
their political practices. Second, although purges have become somewhat less likely
over time, this time trend is not a potential substitute for major power purges,
which are episodic and not as strongly correlated with time.9 Nevertheless, we will
9
The proportional, power-weighted, and distance-weighted indices of major power purges are correlated with
time at 0.47, 0.26, and 0.43, respectively.

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TABLE 4. Probit Results on the Probability of Jailing or Killing Political Opponents, 1919–1999
Independent Variable
Proportion of major powers conducting purges 0.48n (0.12)
Proportion of major power allies conducting purges 0.05 (0.05)
Proportion of states among states within 500 km conducting purges 0.73n (0.08)
Polity score 0.03n (0.00)
Time trend 0.01n (0.00)
Constant 0.70n (0.06)
States 159
n 7,036
Model BIC Statistic
Comparing alternative models of political purges:

Model with no variable indicating major power political practices 680.615
Alternative aggregations of major power political practices:
Proportion of major powers conducting purges in preceding year 689.906
CINC-weighted proportion of major powers conducting purges in preceding year 699.824
Geographically weighted proportion of conducting purges in preceding year 678.996

n
support, 6–10 strong support, and differences of greater than 10 very strong support.
include the time trend in the model in order to control for its effects. As with the
other two phenomena examined here, we will also test the major power influence
model against a skeptical model that excludes the major power influence variable in
order to see if it adds substantially to the model’s performance. Table 4 presents the
results.
Overall, the results support the major power prestige hypothesis. For the sake of
consistency, we report the results of the model employing the simple proportion of
major powers conducting purges. As the BIC statistics reported at the foot of the
table indicate, however, the CINC-weighted measurement of major power influ-
ence produced the best-performing model. (Only the distance-weighted measure of
major power influence produced no statistically significant effect.) The fact that
different ways of aggregating major power institutions and practices performed
best in examining different phenomena suggests that the sources of major power
influence are complicated. Power and proximity appear to make a difference, and
other factors not considered here cannot be ruled out.
Because the baseline probability of a purge in a given year is larger than the
probability of the onset of democracy and formal political equality, the magnitude
of the effects must be evaluated somewhat differently. A shift from 0 to 1 in the
proportion of major powers conducting purges was associated with a change in
the probability of a purge in other states from .11 to .13. Although the probability of
a purge increases by only a factor 1.18 in this caseFmuch less than the relative
increases found in the other two phenomena we examinedFthe increase in raw
probability is actually somewhat larger. As with women’s political equality, although
major power practice mattered, those of a state’s major power allies had no sta-
tistically significant effect. Reassuringly, there is no evidence that major powers
consistently promote the imitation of their political purges by other states. Once
again, the geographic diffusion process had a larger effect, with a shift from 0 to 1
in the proportion of states within 500 km conducting purges producing a change in
the probability of a purge from roughly .11 to .30. Both time and the state’s polity
score also had substantial effects on the probability of a purge. Holding other
variables at their mean, the probability of a purge fell from .34 to .07 over the

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81 years in the data set (1919–1999). Holding other variables at their mean values,
there was only a .07 probability of a purge in democracies with a polity score of 10,
while autocracies with a score of 10 had a probability of .21 under these
conditions.
The model comparison statistics reported at the bottom of the table also support
the major power prestige hypothesis. The model employing the CINC-weighted
proportion of major powers conducting purges had a BIC statistic that was 17.781
points lower than that of the skeptical model, indicating very strong support for the
results reported in the main part of the table. The simple proportion of major
powers conducting purges also receives strong support over the skeptical model,
with a BIC statistic 8.543 points lower.
Conclusion
Overall, these three tests provide qualified support for the argument that the in-
ternal characteristics of major powers can influence other states. The institutions
and practices of the major powers appear to have had a substantial effect on the
spread of two of the three phenomena we examined: the extension of formal
equality to women and the practice of purging political opponents of the state.
When major powers extended formal equality, or engaged in political purges, other
states were more likely to follow suit. The role of major power prestige in the
spread of democracy is less certain. Although the democratization of the major
powers appeared to increase the probability of a democratic transition in other
states, it had no discernible impact on the probability that democracy would persist.
Moreover, models that omitted major power democracy entirely performed at least
as well as those that included it.
The effect of major power institutions and practices was less than that of geo-
graphic diffusion with respect to all three of the phenomena we examined, but it
was still quite substantial. Geographic diffusion is a well-known process. For present
purposes, it is probably more important that major power institutions and practices
had an independent effect than that this effect was not as large as that of the
geographic neighborhood. When it comes to understanding at least some impor-
tant international outcomes, major powers are not all the same, even if their relative
power does not differ. To return to the metaphor of our title, we should treat them
less like impenetrable billiard balls, distinguished only by their relative power, and
more like snowflakes, with many potentially relevant internal characteristics. Con-
sidering the effect of major power prestige is especially important when studying
related diffusion processes. Just as omitting geographic diffusion from the analysis
presented here would have created a likely specification error, so omitting major
power institutions and practices from an analysis of related processes could create
the same problem there.
For the three phenomena considered here, the evidence suggests that the in-
fluence of major power institutions and practices stems more from their prestige
and legitimacy in the eyes of those considering their adoption than from promo-
tional efforts by the major powers. If the influence of major powers’ domestic
characteristics were primarily because of these states’ efforts to secure their adop-
tion in other states, the characteristics of major power allies should have been more
important than those of all major powers. The weaker state in an asymmetric
alliance generally has to make policy concessions to its more powerful partner in
exchange for security guarantees. We found little evidence that major powers con-
sistently used this leverage to get their minor-power alliance partners to adopt their
institutions and practices. In the two cases where we found the strongest support
for the major power prestige hypothesisFformal equality for women and political
purgesFthe institutions and practices of major power allies had no statistically
significant effect at all. In the case of democracy, the institutions of major power

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allies made a difference, but its effect was less than that of the institutions of the
major powers as a whole, including those not allied to the minor power in question.
Major powers undoubtedly promote the adoption of their institutions and practices
in many important cases. However, our evidence suggests that they do not do so
consistently, and that this process is less important than the prestige effect.
Are all major powers the same when it comes to the prestige of their institutions
and practices? The evidence we reviewed here does not provide a clear answer to
this question. While a simple proportion of the major powers that have adopted
a particular institution or practice produced the best model of the transition to
democracy, alternative ways of aggregating major power characteristics worked
somewhat better in the case of the other two dependent variables we examined.
Weighting the proportion by geographic proximity to the adopting state worked
best in the case of women’s political equality, and weighting by material power
worked best in the case of purges. The details of the process through which major
power prestige operates may account for these differences. Previous research has
emphasized the role of transnational social movements in the spread of women’s
suffrage. Success in geographically close major powers may be especially important
to these social movements if they spread more easily to nearby states with greater
linguistic and other similarities. Transnational social movements are not likely to
have played a comparable role in the spread of purges. Further research on the way
major power prestige works on particular issues is clearly warranted.
The fact that major power institutions and practices appeared to influence
women’s political equality and the practice of political purges more robustly than
the spread of democracy suggests some limits on the effects of major power pres-
tige. In our analysis, prestige mattered most for institutions and practices from
which the adopting states could draw some benefit, or at least pay relatively little
cost. Becoming (and especially remaining) a democracy is a fundamental decision
about who will wield political power in a state. Its adoption can be quite costly to
those in control. On the other hand, women can be granted formal political equality
without changing the character of the regime. For example, women’s participation
in elections may make little fundamental difference if those elections are not
meaningful. Far from imposing costs on the regime conducting them, political
purges may be a way of maintaining it in power.
While further research on this issue would be necessary to confirm this pattern,
the interests of state leaders may turn out to be very important in shaping the
effects of major power prestige. If other states imitate major powers opportunis-
tically, we may be more likely to observe the effects of prestige in areas that enhance
state power relative to society, such as military technology and organization, the
structure of state agencies, or techniques of propaganda and social control. We may
be less likely to observe a major power prestige effect when it comes to institutions
and practices that decrease the power of state decision makers, such as democra-
tization, federalism, and respect for human rights. Opportunism may also mean
that some prestige effects will be evident only among limited groups of states. For
example, prestige effects may spur the adoption of specific democratic institutions,
such as single-member districts, only among states that are already democratic, or
where leaders expect that the new institution will augment their power. Unfortu-
nately, it may turn out that many of the institutions and practices that most deserve
widespread adoption may be among those least likely to be spread through the
medium of major power prestige.
Prestige is an old idea, but it has not received much empirical scrutiny. This
analysis is just a first step in addressing the issue. Our research design is useful for
testing whether major power prestige influences certain outcomes, but answering
other important questions about prestige will require a different approach. Prestige
may not always be linked to material power, as we have assumed here. States other
than the major powers may also become prestigious under some circumstances.

on 06 February 2018
Similarly, the prestige of particular major powers may rise and decline over time
even if their material power remains unchanged. Explaining how prestige and
material power may diverge requires measuring prestige, something that our re-
search design does not do.
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International Studies Quarterly (2007) 51, 31–52

Billiard Balls or Snowflakes?

Do the institutions and practices of the major powers influence those of

r 2007 International Studies Association.

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Major Power Prestige and the Spread of Institutions and Practices

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international consequences. For the same reason, American institutional innova-

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Alternative Arguments About the Diffusion of Institutions and Practices

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clear. Geographic proximity might matter because of greater economic contact,

Transnational Social Movements

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Testing the Influence of Major Power Prestige

Measuring Major Power Characteristics

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TABLE 1. Major Powers Identified by the Correlates of War Project

State Years as a Major Power

Including Alternatives to Major Power Prestige

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Major Powers and the Spread of Democracy

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TABLE 2. Probit Results on the Onset and Collapse of Democracy, 1816–2000

Onset of Democracy in Collapse of Democracy in

Model BIC Statistic

Comparing alternative models of democratic onset:

Note: Robust standard errors are in parentheses.

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Major Powers and the Formal Political Equality for Women

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immediately obvious. While major power democracies may have self-interested

Model BIC Statistic

Comparing alternative models of formal political equality for women:

Note: Robust standard errors are in parentheses.

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Major Powers and the Practice of Purging Political Opponents

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Model BIC Statistic

Comparing alternative models of political purges:

Note: Robust standard errors are in parentheses.

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