A once-dominant view in the literature on the politics of economic adjustment held that democratic states are less likely to complete comprehensive economic changes because the initial costs caused by those reforms would lead to a political backlash. This report intends to add to the important debate concerning regime type and economic reforms through a two-stage approach. First, it explores the general relationship between economic freedom and democracy through cross-national quantitative analysis. In addition, this paper's analysis then seeks to apply the lessons gained from the review of the relevant literature and the quantitative examination of the general relationship between regime type and the outcome of economic reforms to the specific case of the banking reforms in the post-Soviet Russian Federation.
