Human Development and the "Explosion" of Democracy : Variations of Regime Change across 60 Societies
Year: 2001
Type: preprint
Abstract: Recently scholars identified a global “explosion” of democracy as a sharply distinctive period\nwithin Huntington’s Third Wave of democratization. So far the role of modernization has not\nbeen analyzed with particular regard to this outstanding phase of democratization. Given that\nmodernization has economic as well as cultural aspects, we test two prominent theses. First,\nwe test Przeworski/Limongi’s claim that transitions to democracy do not derive from economic\nmodernization. Using a graded measure of regime change, we present evidence to the\ncontrary. Second, we test Inglehart’s finding that modern mass attitudes play a negligable role\nin promoting regime change to democracy. To the contrary again, we show that one aspect of\ncultural modernization, mass-level liberty aspirations, has a positive impact on democratic\nchange– even stronger than economic modernization. Third, we unfold the concept of Human\nDevelopment to establish a more general argument on the causal mechanism in the modernization-\ndemocratization nexus. Our data cover 60 societies of the World Values Surveys, representing\nnearly 50 per cent of all regime changes in the world since 1972.
Authors: Christian Welzel, Ronald Inglehart
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1605530426