Democracy and Development: New Insights from Graphic Analysis

2005

One of the most discussed topics in comparative politics is the relationship between democracy and economic development. One of the best established results in this field is the positive relationship between income per capita and democracy. As first established by Seymour Martin Lipset, higher levels of income per capita are strongly associated with a higher likelihood that a country will be a democracy; lower income levels with a higher likelihood that a country will be a dictatorship (Lipset 1960).

The past thirty years has seen an increased focus on democracy promotion as a development tool, a move accompanied by strong debate on the issue. This study looks to analyse the past arguments and methodologies and build on the debate using a comparative approach to assess lower income democracies and autocracies across a range of development indicators. In considering development progress since 2000, the study finds that lower income democracies perform better than lower income autocracies across most indicators; in contrast with many commonly held assumptions and past results.

2006

Does democracy promote economic development? Despite many attempts to address this question, the answer remains elusive. Richer countries are generally democratic. But this cross country correlation could reflect reverse causation or omitted variables. Evidence that political regime changes produce subsequent economic growth is considerably weaker. Does this mean that political regimes have no systematic influence on economic development? Not necessarily, but-given the data limitations-such causal effects are difficult to identify from the within-country variation. A plausible reason for this difficulty is that "democracy" is too blunt a concept. Democracies and autocracies come in various forms, and regime changes come about in various circumstances. If this heterogeneity is not random, the correlation between specific features of political reforms and their occurrence makes it hazardous to estimate an average causal effect on economic growth, or other outcomes. This paper illustrates three specific instances where the details of democratic reform influence the effect on economic outcomes. Section I of the paper clarifies our empirical strategy. Section II zooms in on political

This paper examines the effect of democracy on development outcome of Bangladesh for the period 1972 to 2016. It analyzes both the long-run relation and the direction of causality using the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) framework. The paper uses the Polity data constructed by the Polity IV project as the proxy for democracy, and GDP per capita (constant 2010 US$) as the proxy for development. The estimation based on VEC Model suggests the coefficients of co-integration equations do not adjust towards either long-run or short-run equilibrium, meaning that the results find no evidence of any relationship between democracy and economic development in Bangladesh. /BIGDBRACUniversity twitter.com/BIGD_BRACU BIGD, BRAC University http://bigd.bracu.ac.bd

It is generally accepted that there is some kind of relationship between economic development and democracy, and that it can be demonstrated by quantitative empirical evidence (Rueschemeyer, Stephens and Stephens 1992: 11-39). For example, claims that there is a strong association between the two, Helliwell (1994) asserts that they exhibit a positive linear relationship, while Burkhart and claim this relationship is indeed causal. The difficulties of validating the empirical claims derive not so much from the measures of economic development as from the measures of democracy itself. Democracy is either present or absent (Pzreworski and Limongi 1997), stable or unstable (Lipset 1959), or is reflected in single scales that masquerade as summary indicators of the 'degree of democracy' or democratic performance (Polity III, see also Landman 1999). In other words, the dependent variable (democracy) is insufficiently sensitive or differentiated to provide a proper basis for testing the relationship. Our inquiry deepens the investigation of the relationship by 'unpacking' the dependent variable. To do so it employs a newly constructed crossnational and time-series data set that provides separate measures of eight core values of liberal democratic government. The data set contains measures for forty cases, including both advanced industrial and 'third wave' democracies, over twenty-nine years. The values are accountability, constraint, representation, participation, political rights, civil rights, minority rights and property rights. Our model assumes that the quality of liberal democratic government is not unidimensional but can be measured across this range of values, so creating 'performance profiles' and demonstrating the likely trade-offs across distinct democratic values. Consequently, the inquiry begins to explore the nature of the relationship between development and democracy by measuring in what degrees and in what ways development may influence the performance of liberal democratic government.

1999

Most of us, ardent democrats all, would like to believe that democracy is not merely good in itself, it is also valuable in enhancing the process of development. Of course, if we take a suitably broad concept of development to incorporate general well-being of the population at large, including some basic civil and political freedoms, a democracy which ensures these freedoms is, almost by definition, more conducive to development on these counts than a non-democratic regime. We may, however, choose to look at freedoms as potentially instrumental to development, as is usually the case in the large empirical literature that aims at finding a statistical correlation between some measure of democracy and some measure of a narrower concept of development (that does not include those freedoms as an intrinsic part of the nature of development itself). I have in general found this empirical literature rather unhelpful and unpersuasive. It is unhelpful because usually it does not confirm a causal process and the results often go every which way. Even the three surveys of the empirical literature that I have seen come out with three different conclusions: One by Sirowy and Inkeles (1991) is supportive of a negative relationship between democracy and development; one by Campos (1994) is of a generally positive relationship; and the one by Przeworski and Limongi (1993) is agnostic ("we do not know whether R. Wade, Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of the

2019

Democracy is a vital element for the modernization of societies. Through democracy, countries can realize their economic development. Economic development is necessary to establish the required infrastructure in a country that will enable it to be classified as a developed country. A common value held by all rich and happy countries is democracy. Democracy is the foundation of political stability within a country. Political stability is an indispensable element for producing the policies required for economic stability. It is only possible to achieve stability in the economy when there is political stability created by a democratic environment. In almost all countries that do not have any democratic governing structure political conflicts and economic instability could potentially be seen. In this study, the relationship between democracy and economic development is analyzed as well as why democracy is necessary for economic development. The study also shows the relationship between...

Journal of Economic Perspectives, 1993

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.