Week 4: Political Man, Chapter 2 Economic Development and Democracy (Seymour Martin Lipset)

Conditions of Democracy
1. political formula specifying which institutions are legitimate.
2. One set of political leaders in office
3. One or more sets of leaders attempting to gain office
Characteristics dealt with in Lipset's argument
1. Legitimacy
2. Economic Development
  1. in Europe and the Americas
    1. Aristotle/others:
      1. Democracies only in wealthy nations.
        intelligence to participate in politics
        Self restraint
        Protection from demagogues
      2. Lack of wealth
        Tyranny
        oligarchy
    2. Democracy = +wealth + industrialization + education
    3. Education
      1. WHY is there not as high a correlation between Education and Democracy as expected ex: Germany and France.
        Education is necessary but NOT sufficient
      2. 1951-1952 study. Hihg correlation between urbanization, literacy, voting rates, media consumption/production vs education
    4. Modernization
      1. Requires multiple aspects of development to keep pace with one another
        urbanization
        Education
        LITERACY
        Lerner's Phases
        Urbanization
        Literacy
        Media Growth
        Fully accelerates literacy through media networks
  2. and the Class struggle
    1. form of struggle based on level of economic development and resulting changes
      1. Inverse relationship between strength of communism and economic development
        Stronger relationship than between communism and ethnic/ religious factors
        What is the relationship between Communism and level of education?
      2. More wealth and education = multiple pressures from various ideologies = lower commitment to any single ideology = less extremism
      3. Larger, moderate middle class penalizes extremism
    2. Poverty and economic struggle do not result, on their own, in political extremism.
      1. In the case of stable poverty without the concept of the possibility of change, the result will be conservatism
        Resultant high correlation between political extremism and economic inequality NOT simply poverty.
  3. The Politics of rapid economic development
    1. Basic issue is pressure for rapid development
      1. Why are industrial newcomers prone to extremism?
        BC they are uneducated, comparatively poor, etc.
Lipset on emergence of Democracy]
1. Weber not completely right that capitalism is the only prerequisite for democracy
2. Many cases where the socio economic conditions were right, but still no democracy. Germany
  1. Key Historical Events
Persistence of democracy
1. premature democracies must improve conditions that allow it's persistence
  1. universal literacy
    1. literacy gives people the capacity to be good citizens who vote, participate, etc.
    2. The higher one's education, the more likely they are to buy in to democratic values and practices

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Week 4: Political Man, Chapter 2 Economic Development and Democracy (Seymour Martin Lipset)

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