Does democracy and globalization go hand in hand?

An interesting paper by Barry Eichengreen and David Leblang on Democracy and globalization- via New Economist;

“I conclude with a few historical notes. Thinking of specific historical examples, it is hard to see an obvious link between globalisation and democracy. Take 19th century liberalization for instance. Its expansion is conventionally associated with the signing of the 1860 Anglo- French treaty between England - hardly a “democratic” country - and France - then an autocratic regime. Similarly, the reflux of trade liberalisation occurred in France at the end of the 19th century when democracy was at a high point, with this country being one of the few countries on earth with full enfranchisement of male citizens. Similarly, in the mid 19th century, one of the leading countries in terms of empowerment of the people - the United States of America - had a strikingly low trade openness ratio. It compared to that of the world’s leading autocracy - Russia (Accominotti and Flandreau 2006). Autocracy in Russia did not stand in the way of globalisation. In fact, Russia started opening in the late 19th century at a time when its secret police was remote from even thinking of changing its abominable methods. Closer to us, the US has remained until a quarter century ago a largely closed economy with imports and exports representing a tiny fraction of its GDP. Few will dispute that it remained a vibrant democracy all along. Arguably, the current backlash against civil liberties that followed September 11 is the product of some of the challenges that globalisation has created.

The previous list of anecdotal evidence is not meant to stand in the face of Eichengreen and Leblang’s more encouraging results. I, just as they do, want to believe. But these are caveats that suggest that, as long as we do not have a fully fledged theory of why and when globalisation should cause democracy to expand and vice versa, any empirical pattern we think to discern between democracy and globalisation is little more than history.”

- Marc Flandreau, on comments to the paper

Related;
Pillars of Globalization: A history of monetary policy targets, 1797-1997, Marc Flandreau.
The Free Trade Myth
Democracy and Protectionism by Kevin H. O'Rourke, Alan M. Taylor;

"Does democracy encourage free trade? It depends. Broadening the franchise involves transferring power from non-elected elites to the wider population, most of whom will be workers. The Hecksher-Ohlin-Stolper-Samuelson logic says that democratization should lead to more liberal trade policies in countries where workers stand to gain from free trade; and to more protectionist policies in countries where workers will benefit from the imposition of tariffs and quotas. We test and confirm these political economy implications of trade theory hypothesis using data on democracy, factor endowments, and protection in the late nineteenth century."