Democracy and Economic Development: Modernization Theory Revisited

Interest in the relationships between society and politics is as old as written history. Ecological theories, suggesting a relation between the geographic location of homelands and the personalities of the residents and their governments, were advanced by scholars such as Aristotle, Cicero, Ibn Khaldun, and Montesquieu and may be viewed as efforts to explain the contextual determinants of political systems. Such literature in the era, however, has focused on the conditions of democracy. Historical studies suggest that modem democracies can occur only under certain conditions of capitalist industrialization. Karl Marx identified the bourgeoisie as the major force behind the emergence of democracy. He argued that the capitalist class used parliamentary systems and mechanisms to capture the control of the state from the traditional elite. Similarly, Moore, in his study of major western democracies, and Soboul, in his analysis of the French Revolution, stressed the role of the middle class and urban bourgeoisie in the transformation of political systems into democracies.' Max Weber marked the importance of Protestantism in the development of western democracies. He considered individualism and a sense of individual responsibility, inherent in the Protestant ethic, as the major conditions for the development of burgher classes and a political culture. Contemporary writers, following Weber's lead, have searched for cultural requisites and the elements of a democratic A civic in Almond and Verba and a modern personality in Lerner have been identified as essentials of a participant (democratic) society.2 Tocqueville, in his study of American institutions, pointed out the virtue of voluntary associations as the basis of social pluralism, which in turn nurtures democracy. However, the sociology of knowledge, which emphasizes the influence of structure and organizational setting on the development of attitudes and behaviors, compels us to direct our attention to the structural basis of developing such a culture or personality. In this regard, aspects of modernization appear to be the common explanatory factors used in the analysis of democracy.