Participation and Democracy: Dynamics, Causes ... - Jacobs University

has impacted generations of academic scholars: “The more well-to-do a nation, the
greater the chances that it will sustain democracies” (Lipset 1960: 48). 4
Considering the eminent consequences of modernization, Lipset also acknowledged
Marx’ prediction with regard to the relationship between capitalism and societal
changes. His failures, among others his prediction about a proletarian revolution, are
well known, but Marx (1990 [1867]; 1993 [1858]) succeeded in identifying very early
the specific political and social consequences of a society’s development towards
capitalism. And even though workers did not become the ruling class, they have been
the ones strongly and successfully pushing for expanding universal suffrage and the
rights of political parties (Rueschemeyer, Stephens and Stephens 1992). This line of
argument also follows assumptions according to which modernization brings along
social mobilization and, in the end, mass participation (Deutsch 1961).
In contrast to the designated role that Marx earmarked for the working class, Lipset
attributed a special role in pushing for democratization to the middle class of a society.
For Lipset, democracy was a direct outcome of capitalism. Looking at the history of
today’s representative democracies, his argument finds support in the fact that
democratic societies have almost exclusively occurred in modern capitalist societies. In
the past, this supposition (and the linear interpretation of the relationship between
socioeconomic factors and democracy) has (mis)led some scholars to present
“guidelines for democratizers” (Huntington 1991) – practical advice and instructions on
how to create democracy. Duly applied, so the impression, it works like a recipe for a
good lunch menu.
During the last years, non-linear approaches to modernization have come to the fore of
social science research. Inglehart and Welzel (2005: 25), for example, have followed
Bell (1973) in his differentiation between two distinct phases of modernization:
industrialization and postindustrialization. Both phases differ significantly in the way
4 To illustrate the importance of Lipset’s research: His 1959 article ranks amongst the all-time top-ten
citations of the discipline’s top journal, the American Political Science Review (Siegelman 2006).
“Excluding Duverger’s law on the effect of single-member districts on party systems, it may be the
strongest empirical generalization we have in comparative politics to date” Boix (2003: 1-2).
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