TY - UNPB

T1 - Human development and the "explosion" of democracy

T2 - variations of regime change across 60 societies

AU - Welzel, Christian

AU - Inglehart, Ronald

N1 - Literaturverz. S. 27 - 29

PY - 2001/6

Y1 - 2001/6

N2 - Recently scholars identified a global explosionʺ of democracy as a sharply distinctive period within Huntington’s Third Wave of democratization. So far the role of modernization has not been analyzed with particular regard to this outstanding phase of democratization. Given that modernization has economic as well as cultural aspects, we test two prominent theses. First, we test Przeworski/Limongi’s claim that transitions to democracy do not derive from economic modernization. Using a graded measure of regime change, we present evidence to the contrary. Second, we test Inglehart’s finding that modern mass attitudes play a negligable role in promoting regime change to democracy. To the contrary again, we show that one aspect of cultural modernization, mass-level liberty aspirations, has a positive impact on democratic change even stronger than economic modernization. Third, we unfold the concept of Human Development to establish a more general argument on the causal mechanism in the modernization-democratization nexus. Our data cover 60 societies of the World Values Surveys, representing nearly 50 per cent of all regime changes in the world since 1972.

AB - Recently scholars identified a global explosionʺ of democracy as a sharply distinctive period within Huntington’s Third Wave of democratization. So far the role of modernization has not been analyzed with particular regard to this outstanding phase of democratization. Given that modernization has economic as well as cultural aspects, we test two prominent theses. First, we test Przeworski/Limongi’s claim that transitions to democracy do not derive from economic modernization. Using a graded measure of regime change, we present evidence to the contrary. Second, we test Inglehart’s finding that modern mass attitudes play a negligable role in promoting regime change to democracy. To the contrary again, we show that one aspect of cultural modernization, mass-level liberty aspirations, has a positive impact on democratic change even stronger than economic modernization. Third, we unfold the concept of Human Development to establish a more general argument on the causal mechanism in the modernization-democratization nexus. Our data cover 60 societies of the World Values Surveys, representing nearly 50 per cent of all regime changes in the world since 1972.

KW - Politics

KW - Modernisierung

KW - Herrschaft

KW - Änderung

KW - Demokratisierung

KW - Modernisierung

KW - Herrschaft

KW - Änderung

KW - Demokratisierung

M3 - Working papers

T3 - Veröffentlichungsreihe der Abteilung Institutionen und Sozialer Wandel des Forschungsschwerpunkts Sozialer Wandel, Institutionen und Vermittlungsprozesse des Wissenschaftszentrums Berlin für Sozialforschung

BT - Human development and the "explosion" of democracy

PB - WZB - Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung

CY - Berlin

ER -