FOREIGN INVESTMENTS, PRIVATIZATION, AND POLITICAL CONFLICT IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

This research examines the relationship between direct foreign investment and political protest in developing countries. A cross-national design is employed to investigate how investments in manufacturing and in mining interact with a society's historical relationship to the world system, its contemporary relationship to the world system, its economic structures, and its rate of social change to affect protest. The results show that manufacturing investments in new states and that are from the former colonial overlord are associated with lower levels of protest, while mining investments from a single foreign national source and in societies with high income inequality and a strong local capital structure are related to more protest. In countries with a large working class, both manufacturing and mining investments are associated with higher levels of protest.