Is Economic Development a Prerequisite of a Functioning Democratic System?

We know that democracies are common among the economically urbanized countries and rare between the very deprived ones. The reason we scrutinize this pattern is not that democracies are more probable to emerge, as a result, of economic development but that they are to a large extent more possible to survive if they occur to emerge in most urbanized countries. The paths to democracy are diverse. Indeed, they appear to follow no unsurprising pattern. But once democracy is conventional, for whatever reasons, its endurance depends on a few, easily particular, factors.

In the midst of the prevalence of democratic transitions, a number of developing countries are seeking to achieve the successful consolidation of civil order in modern days. Among those participants, Mexico and Nigeria has been spotlighted for the completely contrastive endings at the end of their long-adventures towards democratization since their independence; Mexico, from its independence, has maintained the political stability despite the authoritarian single-party regime and even accomplished the solid democratization at the time of the 2000 election whereas Nigerian regime has been deteriorated by a series of military cues d’états and

Joseph Schumpeter however, proposed in ‘Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy’ that democracy may function just as effectively under socialism rather than drawing the conclusion that democracy is only generated under the conditions of capitalism. Other social scientists like Rueschemeyer, Stephens and Stephens (1992) believe that “democracy arises due to its functional fit with the advanced industrial economy”, which provides an answer as to why many 3rd world and developing countries still have yet to implicate the form of democracy in their political systems due to their lack of industrial

In his argument on the universal value of democracy Amartya Sen discusses the relationship between democracy and economic development. He notes that it is often claimed that nondemocratic systems are better at bringing about economic development than democratic ones. Sen disagrees with this claim. He asserts that this hypothesis is based on "very selective and limited information" (3). He admits that it is true that some disciplinarian states, like South Korea, Singapore, and postreform China, have had faster rates of economic growth than many less authoritarian ones, like India, Jamaica, and Costa Rica (3). However, he points out that this very selective evidence cannot be used to establish the general hypothesis that nondemocratic systems are better at bringing about economic development (3). "There is no convincing evidence that authoritarian governance and the suppression of political and civil rights are

Since the P-value is less than our alpha value of 0.05, we reject the null hypothesis and conclude that there is as a significant difference between the Levels of democracy.

Also, his ideas on how a democracy is susceptible to being used by groups to further their own agendas are again correct. However, when he tries to explain every social degeneration as the result of the onset of democratic republicanism and then assume that all problems will be fixed by switching to an alternative social system called “natural order” his theory breaks down.

Democracy: a government by the people, in which citizens rule either directly or through elected representatives - the latter description more relevant to today’s societies. Quite evidently, democracy is not perfect; like any other political system, it is subject to a plethora of flaws. For instance, it is no secret that voters tend to make illogical decisions – not out of sheer malice, but as a result of being wrongly informed. Politicians also make erroneous choices, whether they do so because they are dishonest or simply out of touch with the true will of their constituents. Further, anyone who has studied the government of a parliamentary democracy knows gerrymandering can have a powerful say in determining elections. Despite these and

A legitimate state can be defined as “A state in which its citizens have little or no significant resistance to the public policy and leadership of the state in question due to the rightful/legitimate exercise of power.” This Legitimacy of state is often a hard term to apply to any form of government in the modern political world due to the very differing cultures between the western and eastern world. However the general consensus of many political leaders is democracy is the only truly legitimate way of ruling any state. Democracy in the words of Abraham Lincoln is a government formed “of the people, by the people, for the people” where the power of

I think this argument is more coherent because includes the economic influences. If the economy is weak in a country is related to decisions made by the government. Even though we live in a time where the idea of free market and capitalism is highly applied by states, it is also truth that the states have an influential role in the economy, choosing policies that improve or decrease their economic growth. Even further, institutions are created to “reduce uncertainty by stablishing a stable (but not necessarily efficient) structure to human interaction” (North, 1990, p. 6), thus economic interaction is also a kind of behavior that must be regulated by the state through institutions which “are the humanly devised constraints” (North, 1990, p.3), thus if they are not working correctly in the economic, social, political realm is more likely to have a democracy breakdown. I think in this direction we must to understand the argument of Slater, Smith & Nair (2014) remark that the bureaucracy which

Why is it that some countries are classified as developed and others not? What is the criteria used to determine this? Some people believe that within the criteria to evaluate a country’s development, democracy and economic development must be taken into consideration, and that a link exists between them. Democracy can be defined as a form of government in which people choose their leaders by voting, it also implies equal rights and treatment. (Merriam Webster n.d.) By the other hand, economic development can be defined as the progress in an economy referring to an improvement of living standards, the adoption of new technologies and the transition form an agricultural to an industrial based economy. (Business Dictionary n.d.)

In his argument on the universal value of democracy Amartya Sen discusses the relationship between democracy and economic development. He notes that it is often claimed that nondemocratic systems are better at bringing about economic development than democratic ones. Sen disagrees with this claim. He asserts that this hypothesis is based on "very selective and limited information" (3). He admits that it is true that some disciplinarian states, like South Korea, Singapore, and postreform China, have had faster rates of economic growth than many less authoritarian ones, like India, Jamaica, and Costa Rica (3). However, he points out that this very selective evidence cannot be used

This paper will critically evaluate the methodology used in Robert Putnam’s Making Democracy Work. By relying on what the methodological arguments that were taught this semester, this paper will discuss and evaluate in detail the various methodological strategies employed by the author. For the ‘Theory’ theme, this paper will examine casual mechanisms (and methodological individualism) topic, closely referencing the course reading Social Mechanisms by Peter Hedstrom and Richard Swedbeg. Next, for the ‘Measurement and Data’ theme, this paper will specifically examine the measurement validity and reliability topic, and will closely reference “Measurement validity: A Shared Standard for qualitative and Quantitative Research” by Robert Adcock and David Colllier. Finally, for the ‘Testing Theory with Data Theory’, this paper will be examining the history as an explanation topic, closely referencing “The Study of Critical Junctures: Theory, Narrative and Counterfactuals in Historical Intuitionalism” by Giovanni Capoccia and Daniel Kelemen, as well as the relevant topic, Quantitative versus Qualitative Methods. The paper will start by summarizing the readings relevant to the topics of the themes, then delve into the pertinent methodology in Putnam’s book.

The questions are raised as what and how the wealth is distributed or allocated among societies. Countries with similar average incomes can differ substantially when it comes to people’s quality of life such as social justice, access to education and health care, job opportunities, availability of clean air and safe drinking water, the threat of crime, freedom of speech, life expectancy, birth-death control, identity, culture, conservation, equal opportunities, environmental change. Development is important as it covers a wide range process involving cultural, economic, environmental, political, social and technological change of a country. Regarding goals and means of development, recent United Nations documents emphasize on human development measured by life expectancy, adult literacy, access to all three levels of education as well as people‘s average income which is a necessary condition of their freedom of choice. In other words, human development incorporates all aspects of individuals’ well -being from their health status to their economic and political freedom. The Human Development Report 1996 of UNDP focuses on development as the end and economic growth a

Through the ages, economists worldwide have developed different measurements, statistics and standards in order to have an anchor number on how to rate whether they be the development, their perceived inequality among other variables within a country. Because of this, and on the endeavour to unify the measurement of the current situation of a country, the United Nations via the ‘United Nations Development Program’ in 1990 developed and first published their ‘Annual Human Development Report’ featuring for the very first time in history the ‘Human Development Index’ (Stanton, 2007).

He pointed out that different economic levels have their own requirements and they may not follow the same process of industrialization. Moreover, he raised the most influential theory related to late industrialization that the economically backward states may have rapider growth rate as they are late comers, and the national development process relied on the degree of economic backwardness. That is to say the more backward a country, the faster it will advance (ibid).