Modernisation theory PDF

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This acts as a summary for this topic of the Democracy and Democratic theory module. This document goes through some of the key ideas, topics, and scholars relating to this topic. The combination of notes submitted by myself for this module are more than sufficient to pass the end-of-year exam. ...

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Modernisation- economic determinants on democracy Lecture Why care about democratisation? Compared to autocracies, democracies . . . I provide more public goods (Deacon 2003) I have better human rights records (Davenport 2010) I do not fight wars against other democracies (Russett & Oneal 2001) Why Would Economic Development Foster Democracy? -Lipset’s (1959) modernization hypothesis: Economic development leads to… Change of the Economy, Urbanization, Change in class structure, literacy- which in turn leads to…. democracy -Critique on Lipset That correlation does not equal causation -Spurious correlation: factors affecting both economic development and democracy (e.g., historical factors, culture) -Endogeneity: democracy might cause economic development Korea as the natural experiment. As the south became democratic, it became well-off Positive correlation could be due the democratic consolidation effect of income -Does Economic Development Stabilize Democracy? Limongi & Przeworski (1997) argue that Lipset (1959) was wrong: -Economic development does not cause democratization. But, economic development reduces the probability of autocratic reversals Why should economic development help stabilize democracy? Consider the choice of pro-dictatorial forces: -1. Overthrow democracy to gain access to state resources, which is risky and costly -2. Complying with the verdicts of democratic competition -If the marginal benefit of consumption decreases with income, then the expected return of overthrowing democracy diminishes with increasing economic development Their study mainly looks at 1950-90 Przeworski and Limongi’s (1997) data set is rather specific and limited: I 1950-2000: Only 50 years, given that democratizations are rare events and consolidation takes years/decades I Data largely limited to the Cold War period → bipolar great power dynamics Acemoglu Acemoglu et al (2008) presents improved tests including: I looking at the impact of changes in economic development on changes in the level of democracy → control for all country-specific time

invariant factors I looking at a longer time period (1500-2000) I controls for historical factors (e.g., date of independence, industrialization) Conclusion 1. Lipset (1959) was wrong: economic development does not cause democratization. 2. Democracy is the outcome of actions, not conditions (Limongi & Przeworski 1997). 3. But increasing economic development does reduce the likelihood of autocratic reversals; i.e., it contributes to democratic consolidation.

Putnam (1993), Przeworski and Limongi (1997), and Acemoglu et al. (2008) all criticize Lipset’s (1959) modernization thesis. Briefly summarize their critique of Lipset’s thesis and then discuss to what extent their critiques are complementary, contradictory, or completely unrelated to each other. Przeworski and Limongi (1997 Modernisation is a theory that explains the transition from a pre-modern, or traditional democracy, to a modern democracy. The theory looks at internal factors and assumes that with assistance, all countries can be brought into modern democracies Modernisation theory and facts Przeworski, Here, he studies two theories that look at how development help democracy -economic development and democracy Lispet argued that the development of a strong democracy is related to economic development. The stats seem to back up his argument, with more economically developed countries tending to be more democratic -Two reasons for this. Either democracies are indeed more likely to develop in economically strong countries, or they are more likely to be able to sustain themselves in economically developed countries. The first theory is endogenous, and the second is exogenous As we are only dealing with two types of styles of governance, then it follows that a new democracy can only come after an autocracy has fallen, and thus we could argue that dictatorships are more likely to die in economically developed countries A story told about country after country is that as they develop, social structure becomes complex, labour processes begin to require the active cooperation of employees, and new groups emerge and organize. At this point, they cannot effectively be managed under one single command. As a result, the system can no longer be effectively run by command: the society is too complex, technological change endows the direct producers with some autonomy and private information, civil society emerges, and dictatorial forms of control lose their effectiveness. Various groups, whether the bourgeoisie, workers, or just the civil society rise against the incumbent and remove him. The endogenous explanation relates to this story. They state that democratisation is the final step in a long process of development. The specific causal chains consist of sequences of industrialization, urbanization, education, communication, mobilization, and political incorporation, among

innumerable others: a progressive accumulation of social changes that helps to take the political control out of everyday life One critic argues that it takes an authoritarian leader to develop a country to the point where it becomes a democracy- O’donnell Therborn argued that many European countries democratised as a result of war, and not the development of the economy. Some regimes collapsed after the death of the leader (Franco), whilst some fell as a result of external pressures -Democracies may appear randomly, due to the reasons listed above, but only last longer in developed countries. Thus an exogenous solution is depicted, and Lipsett’s conclusion that it is development that creates democracies is wrong However, after analysis by the author, it becomes clear that authoritarian regimes are more likely to fail and have a transition if the GDP is under $6000.. Huntington, it seems, was correct with regard to dictatorships: they exhibit a "bell shaped pattern of instability" -Yet this may not be a fair test of modernization theory. The hypothesis implied by this theory is that if a country develops over a longer period under dictatorship, so that all the modernizing consequences have time to accumulate, then it will embrace democracy. But for most dictatorships this premise is vacuous: only 19 dictatorships to remind, out of 123 did develop over longer periods of time and reached "modernity." -But although some countries did turn democratic after they reached a certain level of income, many either didn’t, or did so well after they had reached this level of income (Spain, East Germany for example). This is more due to how long dictatorships are able to stick around Not one of the 32 democracies that had an income over $6000 fell, whilst only 39/69 democracies under this level fell. This suggests that democracies are more likely to survive if they are in a developed country Lipset thought that the reason behind the survival of democracies in developed countries was that wealth moderates different kinds of conflict in an area -He argued that fighting to impose an autocracy is cheaper in an autocracy. Gaining an autocratic rule would result in owning the power in the country, but in a democracy it is shared amongst its constituent parts. The battle for control would be more costly in a developed country, and as people are already better-off in developed countries there would be less of a relative gain from supporting a potentially-dangerous and costly autocracy challenge. Thus they are more common in democracies1

1 Suppose that the political forces competing over the distribution of income choose between complying with the verdicts of democratic competition, in which case each can expect to get some share of total income, or risking a fight over dictatorship, which is costly but which gives the victor all of the income. Now suppose that the marginal utility of consumption is lower at higher levels of consumption. Thus the gain from winning the struggle for dictatorship is smaller. In turn, if the production function has diminishing marginal returns in capital stock, the "catch-up" from destroying a part of it during the war for dictatorship is faster at lower levels of wealth. Hence, in poor countries the value of becoming a dictator is greater and the accumulated cost of destroying capital stock is lower. In wealthy countries, by contrast, the gain from getting all rather than a part of total income is smaller and the recuperation from destruction is slower. Hence, struggle for dictatorship is more attractive in poorer countries.

Others argue that development goes with education, and the more educated a person is, the more likely they are to embrace democracy. And that education is a proxy for development? -Ups or Downs One thing that Lipset added was that extremism was the worst challenge to democracy, and that extremism is most likely to occur in populations that are rapidly expanding. Wherever industrialization occurred rapidly, introducing sharp discontinuities between the pre-industrial and industrial situation, more rather than less extremist working-class movements emerged." -This is not true, and democracies are safer in more rapidly developing countries Also democracies are more likely to fall in times of recessions -Modernisation theory revisited Huntington and O’Donnell both agreed that both autocracies and democracies go through a patchy phase as they start to embrace modernisation Huntington wasn’t interested in the difference between autocracies and democracies. Instead he argued that the stability of a regime rested upon the degree of government, how much there was. The problem was not to hold elections, but to create organisations. Not liberty, but legitimate public order -Does history repeat itself? Huntington’s waves of democratisation We know that (1) the probability that a democracy is born is widely scattered with regard to the level of development, rising at low levels and declining at high levels; (2) the probability that a democracy dies declines monotonically with per capita income; and (3) as a result, the probability that a country has a democratic regime increases with level The did a test to see if these criteria set out above still existed, and they came to the conclusion that the levels at which democracies emerged before World War II were highly scattered; (2) they did not differ between Western Europe and other parts of the world; and (3) once established, democracies were more likely to fall in the poorer countries North Korea is an example of this theory, in the sense that north was autocracy and poor, whereas south was democracy, and stayed so because it was rich -conclusions Many believed that democracy was not just the result of external conditions, but was created due to actions. Hence, the O'Donnell-Schmitter project was couched in terms of actors and strategies, rather than in terms of deterministic condition Others argued that a greater percent of income went on investment in autocracies, and a higher percent went on autocracies in democracies, and thus “if LEDCs are to grow economically, they must limit democratic participation in political affairs”. This type of economic development is necessary in order to reach the level that democracies flourish Democracy is or is not established by political actors pursuing their goals, and it can be initiated at any level of development. Only once it is established do economic constraints play a role: the chances for the survival of democracy are greater when the country is richer.

Yet even the current wealth of a country is not decisive: democracy is more likely to survive in a growing economy with less than $1,000 per capita income than in a country with an income between $1,000 and $2,000 that declines economically. If they succeed in generating development, democracies can survive even in the poorest nations democracies to appear randomly with regard to levels of development, but to die in the poorer countries and survive in the wealthier ones Thus, history gradually accumulates wealthy democracies, since every time a dictatorship happens to die in an affluent country, democracy is there to stay. It survives if a country is modern, but is not the result of modernisation

Przeworski, Adam and Fernando Limongi. 1997. Modernization: Theories and Facts. World Politics, 49(1): 155-183

Endogenous- being a democracy due to economic development. The chance of becoming democracy increases with economic development. Critique- Correlation, causation, endogeneity (that there are third reasons behind the phenomena). Pveosky wants actions not example Exogenous- Remaining a democracy due to economic development, but that initial democratisation is random Need to make examples Discuss the distinction between exogenous and endogenous mechanisms. Does empirical support this Turkey is not an example £1,000. After $7,000 you are less likely to

Income and Democracy By Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, James A. Robinson, and Pierre Yared* Today, all OECD countries are democratic, while many of the nondemocracies are in the poor parts of the world, Lipset (1959) suggested that democracy was both created and consolidated by a broad process of "modernization" which involved changes in "the factors of industrialization, urbanization, wealth, and education [which] are so closely interrelated as to form one common factor. -This central tenet of the modernization theory, that higher income per capita causes a country to be democratic, is also reproduced in most major works on democracy The idea of fixed effects is to move beyond this comparison and investigate the "within-country variation," that is, to ask whether Colombia is more likely to become (relatively) democratic as it

becomes (relatively) richer. In addition to improving inference on the causal effect of income on democracy, this approach is more closely related to modernization theory as articulated by Lipset (1959), which emphasizes that individual countries should become more democratic if they are richer, not simply that rich countries should be democratic Our first result is that once fixed effects are introduced, the positive relationship between income per capita and various measures of democracy disappears -No changes between rising income and rising chances of becoming democratic. This sheds doubt on the causal claim between income and democracy They conduct a second investigation. This is conducted by looking at the effect of past saving rates, and the second is looking at the changes in income of major trading partners. This is believed to be completely independent from democracy promotion They also look at the relationship between income and democracy over the past 100 years using fixed effects regressions and again find no evidence of a positive impact of income on democracy -This raises question of why are rich countries democratic today. -At a statistical level, the answer is clear: even though there is no relationship between changes in income and democracy in the post-war era or over the past 100 years or so, there is a positive association over the past 500 years. Most societies were nondemocratic 500 years ago and had broadly similar income levels. The positive cross-sectional relationship reflects the fact that those that have become more democratic over this time span are also those that have grown faster. Thus, the causal effect of modernisation theory might be correct, but it take a longer time period to do it -They favor another explanation for this pattern. Even in the absence of a simple causal link from income to democracy, political and economic development paths are interlinked and are jointly affected by various factors -Societies may embark on divergent political-economic development paths, some leading to relative prosperity and democracy, others to relative poverty and dictatorship. Changes in income and democracy are caused by the fact that countries have embarked on divergent development paths at some critical junctures during the past 500 years When we use information on population density, as well as on independence year and early constraints on the executive, the 500-year relationship between changes in income and democracy in the former colonies sample disappears. This pattern is consistent with the hypothesis that the positive cross-sectional relationship between income and democracy today is the result of societies embarking on divergent development paths at certain critical junctures during the past 500 years. 2 -The investigation Lots of stats on here There is no evidence of a significant positive effect of income on democracy either with the Freedom House or the Polity data (while democracy continues to be strongly predicted by its lags)

2 Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson (2001, 2002) and Engerman and Sokoloff (1997) argue that differences in European colonization strategies have been a major determinant of the divergent development paths of colonial societies. T

-Once again, there is no evidence of a positive effect of income on democracy. We also checked and found no evidence of an effect of the volatility in the growth rate of income per capita on democracy It seems plausible to expect that changes in the savings rate over periods of five to ten years should have no direct effect on the culture of democracy, the structure of political institutions, or the nature of political conflict within society As emphasized in Section II, these results do not necessarily correspond to the causal effect of income on democracy, since there may be omitted time-varying covariates.24 Nevertheless, most plausible omitted variables (as well as potential reverse causality) would bias these estimates upward, so it is safe to conclude that there is no evidence of causal effect of income on democracy over the past 100 years. -VI. Sources of Income-Democracy Correlations Here they explain why the correlation between high income countries and democracy exists, given that it is not causal Since 500 years ago most (or all) societies were nondemocratic and exhibited relatively small differences in income, this current-day correlation suggests that over the past 500 years societies that have grown faster have also become democratic 1. A. Divergent Development Paths Divergent development paths refer to processes of development whereby political and economic outcomes evolve jointly They give a great example of Peru and Bolivia3 This description naturally leads to the question of what determines whether a country embarks upon a specific development path and brings us to the notion of critical juncture. The colonization strategies brought about by the Europeans, ranging from the settler societies of northeast United States to the repressive economies of the Andes, were clearly important for the kind of development paths these societies embarked upon. In this sense, we can think of the early stages of the colonization process as the critical juncture for these development paths

3 As an example, let us contrast the development experience of the United States with those of Peru and Bolivia. The United States grew rapidly during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and became gradually more democratic, while these Andean societies stagnated and did not show a tendency to become democratic. Non-democracy and stagnation in the Andes cannot be separated; the hacienda system, based on labor repression and the control of the indigenous Indian communities, was not conducive to industrialization and rapid growth during the nineteenth century. This system and its continuation, even after the abolition of formal systems of Indian tribute and forced labor, were not consistent with democratic institutions and a relatively equal distribution of political power within the society. This contrasts with the small-holder society in the United States, which resulted from the process of European colonization based on settlements in relatively empty and healthy lands. This social structure dominated by small-hold? ers was much more consistent with democratic representation,26 which in turn was conducive to an environment where new industries and new entrepreneurs could flourish with relatively little resistance from established interests.27 This ...