Open markets promote democracy.

• Position: Worldview

Free trade and a liberated population tend to go hand-in-hand. The most economically open countries today are three times more likely to enjoy full political and civil freedoms than those that are financially restrictive. Nations that are closed are nine times more likely to suppress civil and political freedoms completely than states that are open, declares Daniel T. Griswold, associate director of Cato's Center for Trade Policy Studies, Washington, D.C., in "Trading Tyranny for Freedom: How Open Markets Till the Soil for Democracy."

"Governments that grant their citizens a large measure of freedom to engage in international commerce," Griswold relates, "find it dauntingly difficult to simultaneously deny them political and civil liberties." At the same time, states that "protect their citizens behind tariff walls and other barriers to international commerce find it much easier to deprive their citizens of those same liberties? Why? Because "economic liberalization provides a counterweight to governmental power and creates space for civil society" while exposing society to new ideas and communication technologies. Trade also promotes growth, creating a larger and more independent middle class that often forms the backbone of democracy.

Of the 25 rated nations in...