Adam Przeworski et al observation about development and democracy
It has been asserted in the past that there is a link between democracy and economic development. This assertion has been the basis of numerous studies that have been undertaken by various scholars in the attempt to prove this relationship. However, to-date a clear relationship between democracy and economic development is yet to be established.
According to Adam Przeworski et, there is a strong association between occurrence of democracy and the levels of economic development. Moreover, they argue that basically there are two main reasons why this association may hold. The first reason is that there are high chances that democracy will surface as nations develop economically; this is usually referred to as an endogenous reason. The second reason is that democracy may emerge autonomously of economic development but have higher chances of surviving in developed economies; which is usually referred to as an exogenous reason. Thus, based on the endogenous reason, it can be argued that dictatorship is likely to come to an end when the countries in question become more economically developed. This is based on the assumption that, as a country develops the structure of the society changes and new groups come into sight making it difficult to use force in running the entire system. According to Adam Przeworski et the endogenous justification best fits the theory of modernization.
Finally, as mentioned earlier if democracy emerges exogenously, chances of its survival are higher in prosperous nations as compared to underdeveloped nations. This is to say that, democracy in this case only survives in modern countries but it is never as a result of modernization. However, it is important to note that there are some cases dictatorship exists even when a nation is affluent or rather developed. This implies there is no sufficient basis to believe that democracies are as a result of economic development.
