Relationship between Democratization and Development, is there a need for causation?
Even if the waves of democratization in Latin America raise important questions regarding the endurability of democracy versus the other regime types, Fukuyama, Valenzuela and Valenzuela, and Smith, also consider questions about the relationship (whether causal or not) between democracy and economic development. Amidst several attempts of democratization and the legacy of colonialism, the readings put to the test the universally-held notion that democracy requires socioeconomic development. This blog intends to revise this week’s authors’ positions on the matter, and if possible establishing my personal point of view. For this reason, I believe that all else being equal, economic development ensures democratization.
Despite parting from a very controversial claim, I do think that it is reasonable to mention that there is a strong argument towards the importance of attaining democracy and preventing authoritarianism. As of 2000, there are 10 countries that are democratic, and the rest have had experience with democracy. Despite attempting to democratize, economic underdevelopment is a struggle that is persistent in the region, and has created barriers to democracy. The importance of economic underdevelopment and authoritarianism is vital, since there are ways to democratization that could be more efficient in this context that are easier than the modernist approach. The endogenous theory implies that a democracy will be established in poor countries that have authoritarian regimes if and only if there is economic strengthening. And once a democracy is established, the exogenous theory assures that a democracy will prevail because of economic development.
The idea that democracy ought to be instilled under primal economic development comes from the modernization theory, in which industrialized nations tend to have more stable democracies. The problem with such proposition is that the theory had only been proven to be accurate in the “Global North”, and therefore became axiomatic. Valenzuela and Valenzuela argue that the modernization perspective assumed that by being “underdeveloped”, Latin American countries needed to undergo a sort of Marshal plan to achieve the necessary economic threshold to democratize. However, the conditions that ensured development in the West were completely different to the challenges posed by the Latin American Region, and for this reason, many scholars have decided to rule out the claim that the western notion of development causes democracy.
Following the previous idea, Smith contrasts Economic Development and Democratic challenge between the 1900-1939 and the 1940-1977 periods. In the first period, the three most prominent economic nations were democratic, whilst the lesser developed nations were not fully democratic. In the second period, there were two fully democratic nations, both considered somehow or mostly developed, and 10 other nations had attempted to democratize (8 of the 10 were moderately or lesser developed). Thereafter, there is a relationship between development and democracy, and it is even noted that even in the II cycle (one that experienced drastic challenges) some lesser developed countries attempted democratization but failed.
This leads to the question of in what measure is economic development a mean of democracy? An interesting fact that can be drawn from the authoritarian regimes in Latin America is that whenever there were economic hardships there was a regime change. Ultimately, the regime that allowed for the betterment of economic conditions of the populace was democracy.
The question about what conditions of economic development were to be considered for democratization is also interesting. GDP has often been assumed to be the best index to measure development, however, the capabilities theory has proven that the lack of human development is the greatest method as it analyses general activities and skills from the individuals. Valenzuela and Valenzuela part from a point made by Lipset, in which he explains that economic underdevelopment is a result of the lack of entrepreneurial activity.
I agree that the “western notion of democracy” is a harmful standard to compare other nations to. The positive relationship between development and democracy weakens in both the second and third cycle which complicates the relationship. Isn’t it somewhat of a Catch-22 since a certain level of development must be achieved for democracy to succeed but sufficient development cannot occur under non-democratic regimes? What role do other countries and the international community play in Latin America’s underdevelopment? Economic underdevelopment is often associated with the lasting effects of colonialism. It seems as though the importance of economic development lessened as more and more countries experimented with democracy as well. As we know from last week’s reading, countries that have experimented with democracy were more likely to implement electoral democracies. You raised a point about human development which emphasizes elements of the modernization perspective. However, the modernization perspective implies more than just a lack of entrepreneurial activity. You offered an interesting point in that economic hardship often leads to regime change. In non-authoritarian regimes, is economic hardship conducive to regime change? GDP may be considered the best indicator for development, however since the modernization perspective implicate individual behaviors and attitudes, Latin American underdevelopment needs to be looked at from other viewpoints as well. The relationship between economics and politics may not always be simple, and causation must not be implied because of it. Nice post!
My line of argumentation was developed under the idea that Latino American experience with democracy was substantially weak since underdevelopment caused many of the challenges to democratization. To understand this, I had to think of the causes of underdevelopment and realized that Colonialism posed the roots of the problem. In class, we learned about the dependency theory, which later became another term for Neo-Colonialism. Since colonialism had built an economic relationship between peripheral cities (colonies) and the core (Empires), the economic systems around the colonies was built to facilitate the assembly of goods and trade between the Colony and the Empire. This form of economic relationship made the empire wealthier, and hence the colony was strengthened too. However, what happened when these colonies revolted? Since there was no economic infrastructure and no organization, one can only imagine any attempt to democratization to fail.
I want you to think about the difference between the port of Buenaventura Colombia and Charleston South Carolina. Both ports were vital to the core cities of the empire, since Charleston assembled all the products from the farms in the South and sent these goods back to London, and Buenaventura was a port of entry to the trading in Pacific. The problem with both ports was its location in the Periphery (Colony). Charleston was far from Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, and Buenaventura was far from Cartagena, Barranquilla y Maicao. With the revolutions, these ports lost all of their significance, but the difference was that the U.S had developed industry around New York and the other ports while Colombia never developed any form of industry. So why does this matter? All the goods produced in Colombia where exploited in Spain, whereas that in the U.S, the industrialization and the railroad ensured a future of development.
I agree with your point: “However, the conditions that ensured development in the West were completely different to the challenges posed by the Latin American Region.” The United States and many other western countries developed in a time when the world economy was vastly less interconnected. The notion of using the same principals and techniques to “modernize” would have been obsolete. And your points on the seemingly direct tie between democracy and economic stability were thought provoking. We live in a culture in which we cannot tell a person who disagrees with us that they are wrong, (which is a value that I think is important). But where is the line, because I believe authoritarian regimes are wrong and that democracy is important. I’m just wondering if we are able to pick and choose from the modernization theory or not. I believe we can but that may be controversial.
I think your chicken or the egg discussion between democratization and economic development is very interesting. I guess you cannot claim there is a recipe for development. The international climate is constantly changing and applying one equation to development can be both ethnocentric and antiquated.
Regarding the relationship between democratization and development, I agree that there is strong evidence to support the correlation between the two. I believe that economic development is important for creation of a strong democracy. Most countries in Latin America have been unable to achieve successful democracies because of the struggle with economic underdevelopment. Therefore, poor nations are usually vulnerable to authoritarian regimes. I agree with the endogenous theory because poor states with authoritarian governments can gradually move towards democracy through economic development. As indicted in the post, some scholars dispute the argument on the basis that the theory has proven to be accurate only in the “Global North”. They argue that challenges experienced in Latin America are different from the conditions that ensured development in the West.
Nevertheless, evidence suggests that some poor countries have improved democratically through gradual economic growth. As indicated in the discussion, democracy is the only regime in Latin America that has proven to provide better economic conditions. I believe that authoritarian powers exploit economic vulnerabilities and hardships of their constituents to silent any dissent. In addition, I agree that effective measures of economic development can be used to determine progress toward democracy. Over the years, gross domestic product (GDP) has been used to measure economic development of countries. However, lets note that GDP measures tend to be ineffective because they do not take into account social and human growth. The capabilities theory provides a more accurate estimation of economic development because it evaluates general activities and skills at the individual level. Economic stalemate or delay experienced in many countries is a result of a lack of education and entrepreneurial skills.
This post makes a great argument as to explaining why economic development and democracy are not always mutually exclusive, but they do however complement each other. Taking for example Argentina, which was once expected to rival USA in terms of economic prowess, we can see how flawed and undemocratic their government is. Christina Kirchner, a two term president elected, while elected by the public managed to undermine the government and did as she pleased. This caused Argentina to suffer very large economic recessions and economic black holes.
On the flip side, I do believe there is some arguments to be made that without a strong economic base, democracy is harder to build. Without a prospering nation (economically) then there could be a coup or authoritarian personality willing to convince the public that the current government is not doing their best job and therefore a regime change is necessary.
There are arguments on both ways, I tend to favor that economic development and “democracy” are strongly correlated…what do you think?
I think that Democracy is an insufficient term for development. First of all, Democracy is ambivalent, inconsistent, and allows for oppression (Immigrants cannot vote, minors cannot vote – recently criticized by lack of millennial vote in Brexit, some native tribes populations cannot/its almost impoosible to vote).
For this reason, I believe that development is a must, and that political regimes should support and design developmental practices regardless of a democratic model.