1 Does Being Bound Together Suffocate, or Liberate? The Effects of Economic, Social, and Political Globalization on

• We thank the editor and several anonymous referees for extremely valuable comments and suggestions. We also acknowledge the generous help of Axel Dreher and Antonio Ciccone. Only we are to blame for any errors. 2 Liberals argue that globalization, or growing interdependence among states, will transform societies towards more liberal values reflected in better respect for human rights. Skeptics of globalization, among them Marxists, critical theorists, and a large portion of the NGO community, see globalization facilitating the exploitation of the weak by the strong, exclusion of the poor from economic gain and political rights, increased inequality and economic insecurity, all of which results in social disarray—in other words, globalization is a ‘race to the bottom. ’ Thus, resistance to globalization by ordinary people, they argue, will be met with greater state repression. Previous studies have examined the issue with single indicators, such as trade openness and the level of FDI. We make use of a unique measure of globalization, which gauges globalizatio