While it is widely accepted that there are a multitude of variables that contribute to a society’s level of democracy, the authors of this study argue that the prevalence of consanguinity is one that is often overlooked. Using a sample of 70 nations, they tested the relationship between consanguinity (defined as marriage and subsequent mating between second cousins or closer relatives) and level of democracy (defined by both the Polity IV scale and the EIU Index) and found a significant negative relationship. Similarly, when controlled for a host of different variables in multiple regression analysis, the significant relationship between consanguinity and level of democracy held true.

This paper adds to a body of research which analyzes the persistence of institutional features in societies over time by testing for association between local democracy (succession by consensus among preindustrial groups) and various measures of democracy in contemporary societies. The researchers conclude that beliefs and values which perceive democracy as a viable political structure may be an important mediating mechanism in producing and maintaining democratic instututions over time.

The authors propose that societies with a tradition of rice farming are less likely to develop a democracy than societies with a tradition of wheat farming. They base their predictions on the theory that wheat farming, as opposed to rice farming, does not require extensive community collaboration and promotes individualism, which then in turn promotes democracy. Their findings were robustly consistent with their predictions. The authors used multiple controls in their analyses, including religion, economic development, geography, and local democratic practices.

This article evaluates an ancestral history of irrigation as a negative predictor of political empowerment afforded to women. The author measures the ancestral irrigation levels on a per-country basis by tracking the ethnic backgrounds of each country's population and calculating the percentage of the population that has a history of irrigation agriculture. The author finds a significant association between higher rates of ancestral irrigation and a lower index of women's empowerment. As a potential explanation, the author proposes that higher rates of collectivism present in communities that used irrigation led to women's issues being disparaged. To further expand on this explanation, the author investigates and finds a negative correlation between ancestral irrigation and modern indexes of democracy, economic individualism, and cultural individualism. To demonstrate the cultural transmission of attitudes towards women as based on ancestral irrigation, the author evaluates male dominance in oral traditions of cultures with or without irrigation, then correlates attitudes of second generation immigrants in Europe towards women with their parent's ancestral irrigation histories.