State or democracy first? Alternative perspectives on the state-democracy nexus

This article addresses the links between democracy, understood in minimal procedural terms, and the state, considered as a political centre that (1) has the monopoly of violence within a territory, (2) rules over a population that shares a sense of nationhood, and (3) delivers public goods other than political order. It considers two perspectives on these state-democracy links: one that holds that, to ensure successful democratization and enduring democracy, the construction of a state must be completed before steps are taken to install democracy; another that posits that state construction can be confronted in the course of democratization or through democracy. The article concludes that variants of the proposition “no state, no democracy”, when understood as involving explanatory relationships, have validity, but are only partially true, frequently one-sided – ignoring how democracy affects state-related problems – and excessively pessimistic – overlooking how democracy can offer a solution to state-related problems. Thus, research on the “no state, no democracy” proposition does not support a general prescription to put the state first. As democracy was established as a key basis for the legitimacy of the state throughout the world in the twentieth century, the democracy first thesis gained considerable plausibility.