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Capitalist Development and Democracy
It is a commonplace claim of Western political discourse that capitalist development and democracy go hand in hand. Cross-national statistical research on political democracy supports this claim. By contrast, comparative historical studies carried out within a political economy approach argue that economic development was and is compatible with multiple political forms.
The authors offer a fresh and persuasive resolution to the controversy arising out of these contrasting traditions. Focusing on advanced industrial countries, Latin America, and the Caribbean, they find that the rise and persistence of democracy cannot be explained either by an overall structural correspondence between capitalism and democracy or by the role of the bourgeoisie as the agent of democratic reform. Rather, capitalist development is associated with democracy because it transforms the class structure, enlarging the working and middle classes, facilitating their self-organization, and thus making it more difficult for elites to exclude them. Simultaneously, development weakens the landed upper class, democracy's most consistent opponent.
The relationship of capitalist development to democracy, however, is not mechanical. As the authors show, it depends on a complex interplay of three clusters of the balance of power among social classes, power relations between the state and society, and transnational structures of economic and political power. Looking to the future, the book concludes with some reflections on current prospects for the development of stable democracy in Latin America and Eastern Europe.
The authors offer a fresh and persuasive resolution to the controversy arising out of these contrasting traditions. Focusing on advanced industrial countries, Latin America, and the Caribbean, they find that the rise and persistence of democracy cannot be explained either by an overall structural correspondence between capitalism and democracy or by the role of the bourgeoisie as the agent of democratic reform. Rather, capitalist development is associated with democracy because it transforms the class structure, enlarging the working and middle classes, facilitating their self-organization, and thus making it more difficult for elites to exclude them. Simultaneously, development weakens the landed upper class, democracy's most consistent opponent.
The relationship of capitalist development to democracy, however, is not mechanical. As the authors show, it depends on a complex interplay of three clusters of the balance of power among social classes, power relations between the state and society, and transnational structures of economic and political power. Looking to the future, the book concludes with some reflections on current prospects for the development of stable democracy in Latin America and Eastern Europe.
398 pages, Hardcover
First published January 30, 1992
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 10, 2008
You wanna know what democracy is and where it comes from? (And how do we get it if we ain't got it?)
Forget all the "democratic theory" babble and "political philosophy" gibberish, the "Western Values" garbage and "Liberal ideas" gobbledygook, the "capitalism" nonsense and "middle class" baloney, the "constitutional tradition" hot air and Patriotic "fighting-for-democracy" masturbation, and especially the “march-of-history” drivel and all the “comes-with-modernity” noise.
Read this book. Then you’ll know.
Forget all the "democratic theory" babble and "political philosophy" gibberish, the "Western Values" garbage and "Liberal ideas" gobbledygook, the "capitalism" nonsense and "middle class" baloney, the "constitutional tradition" hot air and Patriotic "fighting-for-democracy" masturbation, and especially the “march-of-history” drivel and all the “comes-with-modernity” noise.
Read this book. Then you’ll know.
Displaying 1 of 1 review