Journal of Economic Perspectives
ISSN 0895-3309 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7965 (Online)
The Impact of Economic Development on Democracy
Journal of Economic Perspectives
vol. 7,
no. 3, Summer 1993
(pp. 71–86)
(Complimentary)
Abstract
Any account of the social and economic conditions of democracy must come to terms with the central finding of the cross-national statistical research: a sturdy (though not perfect) association between economic development and democracy. To tackle these questions of causation, we adopted a strategy of analytic induction based on comparative historical research. Our program of comparative historical research confirmed the conclusion of the cross-national statistical analyses of the correlates of political democracy: the level of economic development is causally related to the development of political democracy. However, the underlying reason for the connection, in our view, is that capitalist development transforms the class structure, enlarging the working and middle classes and facilitating their self-organization, thus making it more difficult for elites to exclude them politically. Simultaneously, development weakens the landed upper class, democracy's most consistent opponent.Citation
Huber, Evelyne, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and John D. Stephens. 1993. "The Impact of Economic Development on Democracy." Journal of Economic Perspectives, 7 (3): 71–86. DOI: 10.1257/jep.7.3.71JEL Classification
- O10 Economic Development: General
- D72 Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
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