Democracy and Modernisation

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Modernisation is the long change by which a traditional society becomes an industrial and urban one, with more wealth, more schooling, more cities and more mass communication. Democracy is a system in which people choose and control their rulers. A big question in comparative politics is whether the first leads to the second. Do rich and educated societies become democratic? Or can a country become democratic while it is still poor and mostly rural, as India did in 1950?

This question has a long history. In 1959 Seymour Martin Lipset argued that the richer a country is, the better its chance of keeping democracy. Writers of the 1950s and 1960s, such as Daniel Lerner, Karl Deutsch and Gabriel Almond, built on this idea and called it modernisation theory. Samuel Huntington warned in 1968 that rapid change can also bring disorder, and Barrington Moore showed in 1966 that the road to democracy depends on the classes that rise during change. Later writers, including Adam Przeworski, Ronald Inglehart and Daron Acemoglu, tested these claims against data and gave new answers.

The topic is asked at all levels. UG papers ask for the meaning of modernisation and the link between wealth and democracy. PG and OPSC papers ask for the theories of Lipset, Huntington and Moore and their critics. UPSC and UGC NET papers ask for the link with the Indian case, the dependency critique and the evidence from East Asia. This note explains all of these in simple language and with examples.

1. Meaning and definitions of modernisation and its link with democracy

The table gives the main writers at a glance. The paragraphs after it explain each idea in simple words. The wording is a paraphrase, so students should give the idea and not claim it as a word-for-word quotation.

Writer	Work and year	Core idea	Link to democracy
Daniel Lerner	The Passing of Traditional Society, 1958	Urbanisation, literacy, media and participation rise together	Modern society produces democratic participation
S. M. Lipset	Some Social Requisites of Democracy, 1959	The wealthier a nation, the better its chance to sustain democracy	Wealth supports democracy
Gabriel Almond and James Coleman	The Politics of the Developing Areas, 1960	Developing countries can be studied with one set of functions and structures	Political structures must adapt to change
W. W. Rostow	The Stages of Economic Growth, 1960	Economies pass through five stages, from traditional society to high mass consumption	Growth prepares mass politics
Karl Deutsch	Social Mobilization and Political Development, 1961	Old social ties break down and people become available for new roles	Mobilised people demand a voice
Barrington Moore	Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, 1966	The path to the modern world depends on which classes rise	Democracy, fascism or communism follow different paths
S. N. Eisenstadt	Modernization: Protest and Change, 1966	Modernisation is change towards the social and political systems of the West and its spread	Change brings both order and protest
Samuel Huntington	Political Order in Changing Societies, 1968	Rapid change without strong institutions produces disorder	Order must come before or with democracy
Adam Przeworski and others	Democracy and Development, 2000	Wealth does not cause democracy, but it helps keep it	Democracies survive in rich countries
Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel	Modernization, Cultural Change and Democracy, 2005	Economic growth changes values towards self-expression	Value change supports democracy

Modernisation

Modernisation is the process by which a traditional society, based on farming, family and religious ties, becomes an industrial and urban society. Its signs are rising income, factory work, growth of cities, mass schooling, newspapers, radio and now the internet, a bigger state, and new classes such as workers and the middle class. Lerner described it as a move from village life to a world of cities, literacy and media, in which people come to imagine themselves in different roles. Eisenstadt called it a change towards the kinds of social, economic and political systems that grew in Western Europe and North America from the seventeenth century, and which then spread to other parts of the world.

Rostow gave a plain scheme of five stages: the traditional society, the preconditions for take-off, the take-off, the drive to maturity, and the age of high mass consumption. His book carried the sub-title “a non-communist manifesto”, which shows that it was part of the Cold War argument.

Deutsch used the term social mobilisation for the process by which the old social, economic and psychological ties of people are broken, and they become ready for new patterns of group life and behaviour. Moving to a city, learning to read, listening to the radio and working in a factory are all examples. A mobilised population makes new demands on the state, and so the state has to find ways of including them. This is the bridge between modernisation and democracy.

Democracy as the outcome

Lipset made the first clear link. He used data on Europe and Latin America to show that stable democracies were on average richer, more urban, more literate and more industrial than unstable democracies and dictatorships. He argued that wealth reduces the bitterness of class conflict, spreads education, and builds a large middle class that favours moderate politics. Since his study, this has been called the Lipset hypothesis or the modernisation thesis.

The cautious view

Huntington replied that modernisation does not automatically give democracy. In a changing society the rise of new groups, who demand a share of power, is faster than the growth of strong institutions to handle them. The result may be coups, riots and rule by the military, which he called praetorianism. Moore added that history gives different outcomes: the English and French paths led to democracy, the German and Japanese paths led to fascism, and the Russian and Chinese paths led to communism.

Later tests

Przeworski and Limongi studied many countries after 1950 and found that wealth does not cause democracy, but that once a country is democratic, it is far more likely to survive when its income is higher. Inglehart and Welzel argued that economic security slowly moves people from survival values to self-expression values, and the demand for freedom grows.

Note to the student. In an answer, begin with the meaning of modernisation and Lipset’s thesis, then bring in Huntington and Moore as the cautious replies, and end with the later tests and the Indian case. This order shows both the theory and its criticism.

All the writers agree that modernisation changes the way people live and think, and that these changes raise questions about who should rule. They differ on the answer. One group says that modernisation leads to democracy, another says that it needs strong order first, and a third says that it depends on the path a society takes.

2. Characteristics of modernisation and of its link with democracy

The points below describe what modernisation is and how it is said to work on politics. Each point ends with its meaning for democracy, because that is how examiners ask the question.

Economic growth and industrialisation

Modernisation begins with a shift from farming to factories and services, and with rising output per person. Wealth creates a surplus that can pay for schools, roads and public services. Lipset treated this as the base of everything else: richer societies, he said, are better able to bear the losses of an election and so accept the rules of democracy.

Urbanisation

People move from villages to towns and cities. In cities they meet strangers, join associations, read newspapers and find that they share problems. This weakens the hold of the landlord, the village head and the caste or clan leader, and makes organised politics possible. In India the growth of cities has also created new voter groups, such as migrant workers.

Spread of education and literacy

Schooling teaches people to read, think and compare. An educated citizen is more likely to follow public affairs, vote and demand rights. Lerner and Lipset both gave education a central place. At the same time, education alone does not secure democracy, as shown by well-schooled societies that accepted dictatorship.

Mass communication

Newspapers, radio, television and now mobile phones carry news to people who were far from the centre. Lerner called the media the “mobility multiplier” that lets people imagine lives and roles beyond their village. Mass media can inform the voter, but it can also be used by rulers for propaganda.

As Deutsch showed, old ties of birth, place and custom weaken, and large numbers of people become available for new groups, parties and movements. This raises the demand for a voice in government. If the state cannot respond, the result is protest and instability, so mobilisation is both a chance and a danger for democracy.

Growth of new classes

Modernisation creates workers, traders, professionals and a middle class. Moore summed up the point in the phrase “no bourgeoisie, no democracy”, meaning that a strong class independent of the king and the landlord has been the usual carrier of democratic change. Later writers such as Rueschemeyer, Stephens and Stephens argued that the working class was a more reliable friend of democracy than the middle class.

Secularisation and change of values

Religion and custom lose some of their hold on public life, and rational and individual ways of thinking grow. Inglehart and Welzel found that, as people become secure, they place more value on choice, equality and self-expression. These values favour democracy, though they change slowly, over generations.

Differentiation of institutions

In a modern society, roles become specialised. The courts, the army, the civil service, business and the schools separate from the ruler and from one another. This division of functions makes it easier to limit power, and it is the basis of the rule of law. Almond and Coleman used the idea of structural differentiation in their scheme.

Expansion of the state and of participation

The modern state collects taxes, runs schools and keeps records of citizens. In return, citizens ask for a say in policy and for rights. In Europe the extension of the vote followed the growth of mass armies and industrial work. The demand for participation is the point at which modernisation meets democracy.

Rise of civil society

Unions, clubs, professional bodies, parties and associations stand between the citizen and the state. Writers from Tocqueville to Putnam have held that they train people in cooperation and check power. A modernising society usually has more of them.

Capacity to sustain democracy, not to create it

The best-supported finding, from Przeworski and Limongi, is that wealth helps democracy survive, but does not alone cause a country to become democratic. Dictatorships can become rich, as the East Asian cases show. This is the most important qualification, and a good answer must mention it.

Unevenness and risk of disorder

Change does not come at the same pace in all fields. When mobilisation runs ahead of institutions, Huntington warned, the result may be disorder, coups and rule by the military. A modernising society can thus move in a democratic or an authoritarian direction depending on its institutions.

Dependence on the path and on the setting

Moore, and later Acemoglu and Robinson, showed that outcomes depend on the balance of classes, the role of the state and the place of the country in the world. Modernisation is therefore not a single road. The same changes can produce different regimes in different countries.

3. Evolution of the theory of democracy and modernisation at a glance

The theory did not appear fully formed. It grew through a series of claims and replies, each answering the weakness of the one before. The diagram shows eight stages. The highlighted stage marks the turning point, when Moore, Eisenstadt and Huntington showed that modernisation does not lead to democracy automatically.

Read the diagram from top to bottom. The first two stages built the optimistic theory. Writers of the late 1950s linked wealth, schooling, cities and media with democracy, and gave the idea its first evidence. In the third stage, Deutsch, Almond and Verba added social mobilisation and political culture, which explain how social change turns into political demand.

The fourth stage is the turning point. Moore showed that the route depends on class coalitions, and Huntington that change without institutions brings disorder. In the fifth stage, critics from Latin America and the South, such as Frank, O’Donnell and Wallerstein, questioned the whole Western model. The sixth, seventh and eighth stages are marked by testing. Researchers used large data sets to ask whether wealth causes democracy or only protects it, and later writers studied values, institutions, East Asia and the recent debate on backsliding.

For examinations, the stages give a ready frame for a long answer. A student can name a writer, a work and a year for each stage, and can show how each stage replied to the one before.

4. Modernisation theory: origin, writers and assumptions

Modernisation theory is a body of ideas that grew in American social science in the 1950s and 1960s. It tried to explain how the new states of Asia, Africa and Latin America could move from poverty and tradition to wealth and stable government. Many of its writers were also interested in showing that the democratic and capitalist path was a better answer than the communist one. This Cold War setting is a standard point in answers.

Origin and setting

Three developments gave rise to the theory. After 1945, many colonies became independent and needed a plan for development. The United States and the Soviet Union competed for influence in these countries. And social science, especially the work of Talcott Parsons, offered a set of tools to compare “traditional” and “modern” societies. Parsons’ pattern variables, for example, set ascription (status by birth) against achievement (status by merit), and particularism against universalism.

Lerner and the Middle East

Daniel Lerner studied six Middle Eastern countries in the 1950s, and in The Passing of Traditional Society he described how modernisation moves in a sequence: urbanisation, then literacy, then exposure to the mass media, and then political participation. A key idea is empathy, the ability to imagine oneself in the position of another person, which makes a villager ready to accept new roles. His study of a Turkish village that he called Balgat is the best-known illustration.

Rostow’s stages of growth

Rostow’s scheme is the best-known economic version of the theory.

Stage	Meaning	Example
Traditional society	Mostly farming, low output, power with landowners	Pre-industrial societies
Preconditions for take-off	New ideas, banks, a central state and growing trade	Britain before the late 1700s
Take-off	Rapid growth in a few leading industries, a rise in the rate of investment	Britain from the 1780s; later others
Drive to maturity	Growth spreads to many sectors and technology matures	Western Europe and the United States by 1900
Age of high mass consumption	Durable goods, services and the welfare state	United States in the 1950s

Critics have said that the scheme is a statement of the Western experience, and that the line between the stages is blurred. His view that poor countries can follow the same path in order is the point most often questioned.

Almond and Coleman

Gabriel Almond and James Coleman, in The Politics of the Developing Areas (1960), applied a structural-functional method. All political systems, they said, perform the same functions, such as interest articulation, interest aggregation and rule-making. In a modern system the structures that perform these functions are specialised and separate, while in a traditional system one structure performs many functions. Political modernisation was the process of moving from the second state to the first. Almond and Verba’s The Civic Culture (1963) later studied the attitudes needed for stable democracy.

Karl Deutsch measured modernisation through indicators such as the proportion of people in cities, in non-farm jobs, who can read and who have access to media. His central claim was that social mobilisation increases the demands made on government, and that governments must increase their capacity to respond.

Apter and Eisenstadt

David Apter, in The Politics of Modernization (1965), asked what type of political system suits a modernising society, and compared the “consummatory” systems of leaders who rely on ideology with the “instrumental” systems based on bargaining. S. N. Eisenstadt, in Modernization: Protest and Change (1966), emphasised that modernisation creates new groups that protest and demand inclusion, so modernity does not automatically bring peace.

Assumptions of classical modernisation theory

Linear and universal. All societies move along one line from tradition to modernity.
Internal causes. Change comes mainly from inside the society, through its own values and institutions, with little attention to the world economy or to colonial history.
Tradition and modernity as opposites. Traditional customs are treated as obstacles that must give way.
Western model. The countries of Western Europe and North America are the example to follow.
Good things go together. Wealth, education, urbanisation and democracy are expected to rise together.

The later sections show how each of these assumptions has been questioned.

5. Economic development and democracy: the Lipset thesis and its tests

The central question of this topic is whether wealth produces democracy. This section sets out the original claim and the three main answers that later research gave to it.

Lipset’s thesis

In “Some Social Requisites of Democracy” (1959), Lipset compared stable democracies with unstable ones and with dictatorships in Europe, the English-speaking world and Latin America. He used four sets of indicators: wealth, industrialisation, education and urbanisation. On each set, the stable democracies stood higher. He gave three reasons. First, wealth softens class conflict, because the poor do not feel that the loss of an election is a threat to life. Second, education makes people more tolerant and less open to extreme ideas. Third, a larger middle class acts as a buffer between the rich and poor and supports moderate parties. He also stressed that a democracy needs legitimacy, meaning that people accept it as right, and effectiveness, meaning that it delivers results. Economic growth helps both.

Three answers to the question

Later writers asked a more careful question. Does wealth cause countries to become democratic (the endogenous view), or does it only help democracies survive (the exogenous view), or is the link a result of other things?

View	Writers	Claim	Evidence
Wealth causes democracy (endogenous)	Lipset; Lerner; Boix and Stokes (2003)	As countries grow richer, they are more likely to move from dictatorship to democracy	Cross-country comparisons over long periods
Wealth helps democracy survive (exogenous)	Przeworski and Limongi (1997); Przeworski and others (2000)	Dictatorships fall for many reasons at all income levels, but a rich democracy almost never falls	Data on 135 countries, 1950 to 1990
No direct causal link	Acemoglu, Johnson, Robinson and Yared (2008)	Income and democracy are linked because of shared historical paths, and the link vanishes once these are controlled	Panel data with country-specific effects

The Przeworski finding

Przeworski and Limongi found that the chance of a democracy ending falls sharply as income rises. In their data, no democracy with an income above a certain level, about 6,000 dollars per head in 1985 prices, was ever overthrown. Below that level, poor democracies are fragile, especially if they have slow growth, high inequality or a divided society. The lesson for policy is that supporting growth is a way of protecting new democracies. They also found that dictatorships that grow quickly are not any more likely to become democratic.

Boix and Stokes

Carles Boix and Susan Stokes argued, with a longer historical record, that wealth does raise the chance of a switch to democracy. Their explanation is that in a richer and more equal society, the ruling elites lose less by letting others vote, so they are less ready to fight democracy. Their argument stresses the role of inequality as much as that of income.

The sceptical view

Acemoglu and his colleagues argued that rich countries are democratic mainly because they took certain historical paths, for example when European states set up strong institutions early. When the effects of such history are removed, higher income no longer predicts democracy. This result remains debated, but it shows that income is not enough to explain regime change.

Exceptions that test the thesis

Oil and resource-rich states. Countries such as Saudi Arabia and several Gulf states are rich but not democratic. Michael Ross argued that governments with large income from oil can avoid taxing their citizens and so avoid answering to them, a point called the resource curse.
East Asian growth under authoritarian rule. South Korea and Taiwan grew fast under authoritarian governments and became democratic later, while Singapore stayed an electoral dictatorship while rich. China has grown to a middle income with one-party rule.
Poor democracies. India since 1950, Costa Rica and Botswana have kept democracy at low incomes, showing that wealth is not a requirement.
Rich states that fell. Argentina, one of the richest countries in the world in 1900, saw coups in the twentieth century, and Germany’s Weimar Republic fell in 1933 in a country that was already industrial.

Reading the evidence together

The general view today is cautious. Wealth makes democracy more likely to survive, and it may make a change to democracy more likely, but it neither guarantees nor is required for it. Politics, institutions, inequality and international events decide the outcome in each case.

6. Social and cultural change: classes, civic culture and values

Economic growth works on politics through people: their schooling, their groups, their beliefs and their sense of what government should do. This section covers the social and cultural side of the theory.

Education, cities and media

Lerner’s sequence of urbanisation, literacy, media and participation is the simplest way to show how social change turns into political demand. A city dweller who can read a newspaper and hears the radio learns that his problems are shared and that government decisions affect him. India shows both sides of this. The spread of schooling, vernacular newspapers and, after 2010, cheap mobile data has widened political interest in towns and villages. But the same media can be used for rumour and hate, so the effect on the quality of democracy is mixed.

The middle class and the working class

Lipset and Moore gave special importance to the middle class. It has property and a stake in law, and it wants a government that protects them from the arbitrary power of the king or the military. Later work by Rueschemeyer, Stephens and Stephens, in Capitalist Development and Democracy (1992), challenged this. They found that in Europe and Latin America the working class, and not the middle class, was the steadiest supporter of full democracy, because it had the most to gain from the extension of the vote. The middle class often wanted democracy for itself but feared it for the poor. The large landowners were the most constant opponents.

The civic culture

Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba studied five countries (the United States, Britain, Germany, Italy and Mexico) and published The Civic Culture in 1963. They described three types of political orientation:

Type	Meaning	Example
Parochial	The citizen is hardly aware of the national political system	Isolated village communities
Subject	The citizen knows the system and obeys it, but does not take part	Citizens of an authoritarian state
Participant	The citizen knows the system and takes an active part	Informed voters and members of groups

They argued that stable democracy needs a mixed culture, in which participant attitudes are balanced by some trust in authority and by deference, so that government can act and citizens can still influence it. Britain was their best example. Critics said that the study confused cause and effect, because a stable democracy may produce civic attitudes and not the other way round, and that it was too favourable to Anglo-American culture.

Robert Putnam, in Making Democracy Work (1993), compared the regions of Italy and found that regions with a long tradition of clubs, choirs and associations had better government than those with few. He called the trust and networks found in such groups social capital. His book Bowling Alone (2000) described a fall in such groups in the United States. The idea links back to Tocqueville and to the point that modern society creates organisations, and democracy gains from them.

Inglehart and the change of values

Ronald Inglehart, from The Silent Revolution (1977) to his work with Christian Welzel in 2005, argued that people who grow up in conditions of safety and wealth shift from survival values, which stress economic and physical security, to self-expression values, which stress freedom of choice, tolerance, equality and participation. This value change takes a generation, and it makes citizens more willing to demand democracy and less willing to accept dictatorship. Using the World Values Survey, he showed that countries with such values were more likely to be stable democracies. Critics respond that people in poorer countries also say they want democracy, so the demand is not limited to the rich.

Secularisation and the role of religion

Classical theory expected that religion would lose public force. In practice, religion in many places has stayed strong or returned to politics, as with the Hindu, Islamic and Christian movements of recent decades. Many writers now agree that modernisation does not remove religion, but changes its forms. This matters for exam answers, because it is a clear point on which the old theory proved too simple.

The education of women, their entry into paid work and the vote have changed political life in modern societies. Democracy that leaves out half the population is incomplete. India’s reservation of one-third of seats for women in panchayats (73rd Amendment, 1992) is an example of using the state to speed up a social change that the market alone would take much longer to bring.

7. Political modernisation and political order: Huntington

Samuel Huntington’s Political Order in Changing Societies (1968) is the best-known reply to the optimistic version of modernisation theory. He asked a different question from Lipset’s. Instead of asking when a country becomes democratic, he asked when a country has a stable government at all. His answer is that stability depends on the strength of political institutions.

The main argument

Huntington opened the book with a plain statement: the most important political distinction between countries concerns not their form of government but their degree of government. Some countries have strong, accepted institutions and effective rule. Others do not. He observed that in the 1950s and 1960s many new states were seeing coups, riots and civil wars, and not smooth progress to democracy. His explanation was that modernisation produces two things at different speeds:

Social mobilisation and economic development raise the number of people with new demands, and the pace is fast.
Political institutionalisation, the building of strong parties, courts and administration, is slow.

When the first runs ahead of the second, the result is a gap. New groups enter politics, but no institutions exist to channel their demands. Change then comes through protest, violence and force. He summed it up in the idea that modernisation breeds instability, while stability comes from institutions.

Political modernisation

Huntington described political modernisation as having three parts:

Part	Meaning	Example
Rationalisation of authority	One national authority replaces many traditional, religious and family authorities	Creation of a unified civil service
Differentiation of structures	New specialised bodies take over functions, with courts, legislatures and administration separate	Independent judiciary
Wider participation	More groups take part in politics	Extension of the vote, rise of parties

He pointed out that the first two parts can be done by a strong ruler, so a king may be a modernising force. The third part is what produces the demand for democracy. Thus, a monarchy that modernises the state but resists participation can fall to revolution.

Institutionalisation

He defined an institution as a stable, valued and repeated pattern of behaviour and measured its strength by four tests: adaptability (it can change with time), complexity (it has many parts and functions), autonomy (it is separate from other groups), and coherence (it is united). A strong party system, such as the Congress system in India in the early decades, could serve as a channel for new groups.

Praetorian society

He used the term praetorian society for a society in which social forces, such as the army, students, unions and the rich, press their demands directly on the government with no accepted channel. The name comes from the Praetorian Guard of ancient Rome, which made and unmade emperors. Many states in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America in the 1960s were examples. In such a society, the army is often the strongest group and intervenes in politics.

Order first, democracy later?

Huntington’s critics said that his book gave a reason to justify military governments and rule by one party in poor countries, because it placed order above freedom. He replied that his point was to show that democracy itself cannot last without an effective state. Many later writers, including Francis Fukuyama in his work on state-building, agree that capable institutions are a precondition for lasting democracy.

The Third Wave

In The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (1991), Huntington returned to democracy. He counted three waves: the first from 1828 to 1926, the second from 1943 to 1962, and the third beginning in Portugal in 1974. After each wave, some countries went back to dictatorship (reverse waves). He listed causes of the third wave, including the loss of legitimacy by dictators, rapid economic growth, changes in the Catholic Church, new policies of the great powers and the demonstration effect (“snowballing”) in neighbouring states. He proposed the two-turnover test of a consolidated democracy, which means that power should pass peacefully to the opposition twice.

Link with other writers

Huntington’s thinking is close to Deutsch on mobilisation, and opposite to Lerner and Lipset, who expected stability to follow modernisation. His warning is also supported by the experience of Weimar Germany and by the failure of many early democracies in Africa.

8. Paths to the modern world: Moore, class coalitions and institutions

A second group of writers did not ask how much wealth a country has but which classes took part in the change, and how. The most important work is by Barrington Moore, a historical sociologist, who compared countries to find out why some became democratic, some fascist and some communist.

Barrington Moore’s three routes

In Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (1966), Moore compared England, France, the United States, Germany, Japan, Russia, China and India. He found three main routes to the modern world, each depending on what happened to the landed upper class and the peasantry when commerce and industry grew.

Route	What happened	Countries	Result
Bourgeois revolution	A strong commercial class broke the power of the landed aristocracy, often through a violent revolution or civil war	England (Civil War, 1640s), France (1789), United States (Civil War, 1861 to 1865)	Parliamentary democracy
Revolution from above	The landed elite and a strong state allied with a weak middle class to modernise without a revolution, keeping peasants under control	Germany, Japan	Fascism
Peasant revolution	A weak commercial class and a strong peasantry; the peasants rose against an old regime that could not reform	Russia, China	Communism

His best-known line is “no bourgeoisie, no democracy”. It means that the existence of a strong independent commercial class is a necessary condition for democracy, though not enough on its own. He also pointed out that democracy in England and France was built through violence, so the democratic path was not peaceful.

India in Moore’s account

Moore treated India as a fourth case, a country that took neither of the three routes. He argued that British rule and the strength of caste and village structures prevented a bourgeois revolution or a peasant revolution, and that this left India with a weak base for democracy. He saw its democracy as fragile, and he doubted whether it could bring peaceful social change. He wrote this in the 1960s, and India’s long democratic record since then has led many scholars to say that he underestimated the effect of nationalism and the freedom movement, and the importance of political institutions.

Rueschemeyer, Stephens and Stephens

The three authors revised Moore’s idea in Capitalist Development and Democracy (1992). They said that capitalism helps democracy by shifting the balance of power: it weakens the landed class, strengthens the working and middle classes, and builds civil society. The working class was the most steady supporter of democracy, and the landed upper class the most constant opponent. They also gave a role to the state and to international power.

Skocpol and the role of the state

Theda Skocpol, in States and Social Revolutions (1979), criticised Moore for his stress on classes alone. She argued that the structure and the failure of the state, especially under pressure from war, explains revolutions in France, Russia and China. This brings the state and the world setting into the story.

Acemoglu and Robinson

Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, in Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (2006), used a simple model of conflict between the rich elite and the poor majority. Democracy gives the poor more power through the vote, so the elite resists it. The elite gives way when the threat of revolution is credible and cannot be met by a mere promise, and when the cost of redistribution is not too high. Where inequality is high, the elite fears democracy most and often prefers repression or a coup. In Why Nations Fail (2012) they added that inclusive political institutions lead to inclusive economies and so to long-term prosperity, while extractive institutions keep the rich in control and slow down growth. They have been criticised for downplaying the role of culture and for using history selectively.

Late development

Alexander Gerschenkron argued in 1962 that countries that industrialise late rely more on the state and on banks, and less on the free market, than the early industrialisers. This may explain why Germany, Japan and Russia, which modernised later, used strong states and did not follow the English pattern of democratic growth. It also leads to the East Asian cases of rapid growth under state direction, which are covered in the next section.

Lessons from the comparative method

These writers show how the comparative method works: a small number of cases are compared in depth, and the outcome is explained through classes, states and timing. For students, the point is that the relationship between modernisation and democracy is conditional. It depends on the class structure, the strength of the state and the time and manner in which the country enters the modern economy.

9. Critiques: dependency, bureaucratic authoritarianism and East Asian growth

By the late 1960s, the simple idea that every society would follow the Western path was under attack from several sides. The table gives the main critiques, and the paragraphs explain them.

Critique	Writers	Main objection	Key concept
Dependency theory	A. G. Frank, F. H. Cardoso and E. Faletto, Samir Amin	Poor countries are kept poor by their place in the world economy, not by their own tradition	Development of underdevelopment
World-systems theory	Immanuel Wallerstein	The world economy has a core, a semi-periphery and a periphery	Core and periphery
Bureaucratic authoritarianism	Guillermo O’Donnell	In Latin America, modernisation produced military rule and not democracy	Bureaucratic-authoritarian state
Developmental state	Chalmers Johnson, Alice Amsden, Robert Wade	Rapid growth came from a strong state, often authoritarian	State-led growth
Reply from the South	Amartya Sen	Democracy is a value in itself and not a reward for wealth	Democracy as a universal value
Cultural critique	Arturo Escobar and the post-development school	The idea of development is itself a Western construct	Post-development

Dependency theory

Andre Gunder Frank, writing about Latin America in the 1960s, argued that underdevelopment is not an original state of traditional society, but something produced by the contact of poor countries with the capitalist world. Resources flow from the periphery to the centre and the local elite gains from this arrangement. Cardoso and Faletto, in Dependency and Development in Latin America (written in the late 1960s, published in 1979 in English), gave a more careful view: some growth is possible under dependency, which they called associated-dependent development. Samir Amin applied the argument to Africa. For the dependency school, the ‘traditional’ features of poor societies are the results of colonial rule and trade, and so the remedy is not imitation of the West, but changes in the world order and in the internal class structure.

World-systems theory

Immanuel Wallerstein, in The Modern World-System (1974), described a single capitalist world economy since the sixteenth century. It is divided into a core of rich, industrial states, a periphery that supplies raw materials and cheap labour, and a semi-periphery in between. A state’s position, and not its internal culture, decides its chances. Wallerstein would say that the democracies of the core grew within a system that depended on the periphery.

Bureaucratic authoritarianism

Guillermo O’Donnell, in Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism (1973), looked at the most advanced countries of Latin America, namely Argentina and Brazil, and found that after the 1960s they were governed by military and technocratic regimes. These regimes came to power exactly when modernisation had reached an advanced stage, and so contradicted Lipset. O’Donnell’s explanation was that when the easy stage of industrial growth ended, elites and the military found that further growth needed foreign capital and the control of workers’ demands, and they did this by suppressing democracy.

Authoritarian modernisation in East Asia

South Korea (under Park Chung-hee, 1961 to 1979), Taiwan (under the Kuomintang) and Singapore (under Lee Kuan Yew) achieved very fast growth under strong governments that limited political competition. Chalmers Johnson, in MITI and the Japanese Miracle (1982), described the Japanese developmental state, in which a skilled bureaucracy directs investment, and others have applied the idea to Korea and Taiwan. Both South Korea and Taiwan became democracies in the late 1980s, after growth had created a large middle class, which fits Lipset. Singapore, however, is rich and remains a limited democracy, and China has grown at extraordinary speed under one-party rule. Supporters of such rule spoke of “Asian values” that favour order and community over individual rights.

Reply of Amartya Sen

Sen, in his essay “Democracy as a Universal Value” (1999) and in Development as Freedom (1999), rejected both the idea that democracy has to wait for growth and that Asian culture is against it. He noted that no famine has ever occurred in a functioning democracy with a free press, and that the tradition of public discussion and tolerance is old in India, China and other parts of the world. For him, political freedom is part of development, and not a luxury to be bought later.

Post-development and cultural critiques

Arturo Escobar, in Encountering Development (1995), argued that the idea of “development” itself was a way for Western countries to define the Third World as backward, and so justify their own influence. Others, such as Partha Chatterjee, wrote that modernity in the colonial world is always partial and borrowed, and that local groups interpret it in their own way. These critiques say that the theory’s idea of a single “modern” end-point is too narrow.

What survives of modernisation theory

The strict version of the theory, that all societies will follow one path, has been dropped. But some findings stand: wealth does help democracy survive, education and urbanisation matter, and value change plays a part. Most modern writers talk of multiple modernities (a term used by Eisenstadt), meaning that modern societies take different forms.

10. India: democracy before development

India is the most important test case for the theory. In 1950 it gave the vote to every adult citizen, without any test of property, sex or education, in a country where only about one in six could read (literacy was about 18 per cent in the 1951 census) and most people lived by farming. By Lipset’s reasoning, it should not have survived. Yet apart from the Emergency of 1975 to 1977, India has kept regular elections and changes of government for over seventy years. This section shows how scholars explain the puzzle.

The puzzle in numbers and facts

Universal adult franchise was introduced in 1950 under Article 326, at a time of low income, low literacy and a recent Partition.
Elections have been held regularly, with the first general election in 1951 to 1952 covering over 17 crore voters.
Governments at the Centre have changed through the vote several times, beginning in 1977.
Turnout among the poor, the lower castes and women has in recent decades been equal to, or higher than, that of the rich and the urban middle class, which is the reverse of the pattern in many democracies.

Why did democracy survive? Explanations by scholars

Scholar	Work	Explanation
Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph	The Modernity of Tradition, 1967	Tradition adapted to modern politics: caste associations became vehicles of democratic participation
Rajni Kothari	Politics in India, 1970	The Congress system gave a dominant party that included many groups; caste became a means of mobilisation
M. N. Srinivas	Social Change in Modern India, 1966	Sanskritisation and Westernisation show change inside tradition
Yogendra Singh	Modernization of Indian Tradition, 1973	Tradition and modernity interact and do not simply replace each other
Arend Lijphart	The Puzzle of Indian Democracy, 1996	Power sharing among groups, in a federal and plural system, supports stability
Atul Kohli	Democracy and Discontent, 1990	Weak party institutions, and rising demands, lead to a crisis of governability
Ashutosh Varshney	Why Democracy Survives, 1998	Leadership, federalism, the diversity of identities and the constitution help democracy to survive
Amartya Sen	Development as Freedom, 1999	Democracy and a free press help prevent famine and give voice to the poor

Modernity of tradition

The Rudolphs argued against the old view that tradition blocks modernisation. In India, they said, caste, which was supposed to be a traditional structure, has been used in democratic politics. Caste associations organise voters, bargain with parties and demand a share of power. This does not remove caste but changes it. They called this the “modernity of tradition”. It is a direct reply to the classical theory that opposed tradition and modernity.

The Congress system and the party system

Rajni Kothari described the early decades as a “Congress system” in which the Congress was a broad, dominant party that held the centre while other parties played the role of opposition and pressure groups within and outside it. The system gave a channel to new groups, and so reduced the Huntington-type gap between mobilisation and institutions. After 1967, and especially after 1989, it gave way to a competitive, multi-party system, with regional parties and coalitions. Yogendra Yadav described the rise of lower castes and peasants into politics as a “democratic upsurge”, and Christophe Jaffrelot has called it a “silent revolution”.

Different visions of modernity: Gandhi, Nehru, Ambedkar

Indian thinkers took different positions on modernisation. Gandhi, in Hind Swaraj (1909), criticised modern industrial civilisation and favoured village self-rule and small-scale production. Nehru wanted modernisation through science, planning and heavy industry, as in the Five-Year Plans from 1951, and a secular, democratic state. Ambedkar warned in his speech of 25 November 1949 that India was entering “a life of contradictions”, with political equality but social and economic inequality, and said that unless social democracy was built, political democracy would be in danger. His warning is a sharp comment on the modernisation thesis, since it says that voting must be supported by changes in social relations.

Institutions and the constitution

Varshney and others stress the role of leaders and the Constitution. The Constituent Assembly adopted a federal structure, a bill of rights, an independent judiciary and an Election Commission under Article 324, and the nationalist leadership was committed to democracy by long experience of the freedom struggle. Stepan, Linz and Yadav have described India as a “state-nation”, in which many identities are accommodated within one political community, and not a nation-state built around one culture.

The limits of the Indian record

Social and economic gaps. Poverty, malnutrition, caste and gender inequality remain, which means that Ambedkar’s concern is still alive.
Quality of democracy. Criminalisation of politics, the role of money, weak internal party democracy and delays in justice reduce the quality of representation.
Debates on backsliding. International indices have in recent years rated India lower on freedoms of the press, speech and the opposition, while the Indian government and many scholars dispute these ratings. Students should present this as a debate and use data and official sources carefully.
Growth and the middle class. After the reforms of 1991, India’s economy has grown quickly and a large middle class has emerged. Whether this strengthens democracy, as Lipset expected, or makes it more favourable to the elite is a matter of discussion.

What India teaches

The Indian case shows that democracy can start before modernisation, that tradition can be reshaped by politics, and that institutions, leadership and a shared freedom struggle can do the work that wealth does elsewhere. It also shows that democracy needs a social base, which is why the task of deepening it continues.

11. Importance and limitations of the modernisation approach

This section looks at what the study of democracy and modernisation gives to students and researchers, and where it falls short.

Importance

It asks a basic question. Why are some countries democratic and others not? The modernisation approach was one of the first to try to answer this with evidence and comparison.
It links economics, society and politics. The theory showed that political change cannot be understood without looking at wealth, schooling, cities and class.
It gave comparative politics its tools. Indicators such as income, literacy, urbanisation and media use made it possible to compare countries in numbers. This was a step towards the scientific method.
It set the agenda for later debate. Huntington, Moore, O’Donnell, Przeworski and Inglehart all wrote in response to it, so it is the starting point of much of modern research on regimes.
It shaped development policy. Ideas of growth, education and state-building influenced aid, planning and international policy after 1945.
It points to supporting conditions. Findings such as the survival of rich democracies and the role of values help policy makers to see when democracy is likely to last.
It explains social mobilisation. Deutsch’s idea helps to understand why protest, new parties and demands for inclusion grow in rapidly changing societies, including India.
It draws attention to institutions. Huntington’s insistence on the gap between demand and institutions has influenced the study of state capacity and of weak states.
It raises the question of order and freedom. The debate between growth, order and democracy continues in discussions on China, Singapore and the Gulf.
It is useful for the Indian case. The Indian experience of democracy at low income is a test that any theory must meet, and so it enriches the theory.
It prepares students for other topics. The ideas are linked to political culture, political development, democratisation and state theory, so they form a base for many papers.

Limitations

Western and linear bias. The theory took the history of Western Europe and North America as the model, and assumed that other societies would follow the same line.
Neglect of colonialism and the world economy. Dependency and world-systems writers showed that poverty in the South is related to colonial rule and trade and not merely to tradition.
Weak evidence for a causal link. Studies show that wealth helps democracy survive, but the evidence that it causes democracy is mixed.
Exceptions are many. Oil-rich dictatorships, East Asian growth under authoritarian rule, China, and poor democracies like India do not fit the pattern.
Tradition and modernity are not opposites. The Indian case, and the survival of religion in politics, show that old forms can adapt and coexist.
Overstates the role of the economy. Leaders, institutions, war, ideas and outside pressure often matter as much as income.
Ignores power and inequality. The approach said little about who gains and loses from modernisation, which is the main concern of Moore and Acemoglu and Robinson.
Measurement problems. Indices of democracy, such as those of Polity, Freedom House and V-Dem, differ in method, and results can change with the choice of index.
Risk of justifying authoritarian rule. The idea that order must come first has been used by rulers to postpone elections and rights.
Slow value change. Inglehart’s value shift takes generations and does not explain sudden changes in regimes.
Environmental and social costs ignored. Early theory counted growth as a good, and paid little attention to ecological damage, inequality and the loss of local culture.

Illustrations from the world and India

Country	What happened	What it shows
England and France	Bourgeois revolutions and slow extension of the vote	Moore’s democratic route
Germany, 1919 to 1933	Industrial and educated society, yet the Weimar Republic fell	Wealth and education do not guarantee democracy
Japan, 1868 to 1945	Revolution from above, militarism, then democracy after 1945	Moore’s fascist route; outside influence later
Argentina and Brazil, 1960s and 1970s	Advanced Latin American economies under military rule	O’Donnell’s bureaucratic authoritarianism
South Korea and Taiwan	Rapid growth under authoritarian rule, then democracy in the late 1980s	Support for Lipset, with a delay
Singapore and China	High growth under limited democracy or one-party rule	Counter-case to the Lipset thesis
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf	Oil wealth without democracy	Resource curse
India since 1950	Democracy at low income and low literacy	Democracy can come before modernisation

12. Using this topic in examinations

What each examination expects

Examination	Typical question	What to give
UG university papers	What is modernisation? How is it related to democracy?	Meaning, main signs of modernisation, Lipset’s idea, one example
PG university papers	Examine the Lipset thesis and its critics. Discuss Huntington on political order	Writers, works, years, arguments, replies, comparison
OPSC (OAS, OCS)	Democracy and development in India	Indian case, constitutional provisions, local democracy, social gaps
UPSC (Civil Services)	“Democracy in India has survived in spite of low development.” Discuss	Argument, scholars, institutions, limits, a balanced end
UGC NET Political Science	Moore’s routes. O’Donnell. Przeworski. Inglehart. Rudolph and Rudolph	Exact names, works, years, concepts, one line of criticism each

Practice questions

Define modernisation and explain its relation with democracy.
Examine Lipset’s thesis that economic development leads to democracy.
Discuss Huntington’s argument that modernisation can cause political decay.
Explain Barrington Moore’s three routes to the modern world.
Critically examine the dependency critique of modernisation theory.
“The East Asian experience challenges the link between democracy and development.” Discuss.
How far does the Indian experience support or reject the modernisation theory of democracy?

Structured answer outline

Take question 2 as the example: “Examine Lipset’s thesis that economic development leads to democracy.”

Introduction: state Lipset’s 1959 claim in one line and say why it started a long debate.
Body: give his four indicators and three reasons (less class conflict, education, middle class); then the tests: Przeworski (wealth helps survive, not cause), Boix and Stokes (wealth causes), Acemoglu and others (no direct effect); then the exceptions: oil states, East Asia, China, India; then the replies: Huntington, Moore, O’Donnell.
Conclusion: say that wealth supports democracy but does not guarantee it, and that institutions, classes and the path of history decide the outcome.

Sample answer (about 200 words)

Introduction. In 1959, S. M. Lipset argued that the more prosperous a nation is, the greater its chance of sustaining democracy. This claim became the base of modernisation theory and has been tested for over sixty years.

Body. Lipset compared stable democracies with unstable ones on wealth, industrialisation, education and urbanisation, and found that the stable ones ranked higher. He explained that wealth reduces class conflict, education promotes tolerance, and a large middle class supports moderate politics.

Later research refined the claim. Przeworski and Limongi found that wealth does not cause the change to democracy, but that rich democracies almost never fail. Boix and Stokes argued that wealth does raise the chance of democratisation, while Acemoglu and others found no direct causal effect once history is controlled.

There are important exceptions. Oil-rich Gulf states are wealthy but not democratic. Singapore and China grew under limited democracy or one-party rule, while India has kept democracy at low income since 1950. Huntington added that rapid change without strong institutions causes disorder, and Moore showed that the path depends on class coalitions.

Conclusion. Lipset’s thesis is best seen as a statement about what supports democracy and not what produces it. Wealth helps, but institutions, classes and historical paths decide the outcome.

Quick check

Can you give the year and the title of Lipset’s study?
Can you name Moore’s three routes and the country examples of each?
Can you state the difference between the endogenous and exogenous views of the link between wealth and democracy?
Can you explain in a line each: social mobilisation, praetorianism, bureaucratic authoritarianism?
Can you give two reasons that India is called a puzzle for the theory?

Common mistakes

Writing that modernisation always leads to democracy, without any mention of Huntington or Moore.
Mixing up Lipset (wealth supports democracy) with Huntington (modernisation can cause disorder).
Attributing “no bourgeoisie, no democracy” to Lipset or Huntington; it is Moore’s phrase.
Calling Rostow’s stages a political theory; they describe economic growth.
Forgetting that dependency theory is a critique from the South and giving it as a part of modernisation theory.
Ignoring the Indian case, or giving it without scholars such as the Rudolphs, Kothari or Varshney.
Ending without a clear conclusion.

13. Critical analysis

Four questions help a student to judge the theory fairly. A PG or UPSC answer should be ready to discuss each.

Does wealth cause democracy?

The evidence supports a limited claim. Wealth helps a democracy survive, and it may help a dictatorship to give way, but it is not a requirement, as India shows, and it is no guarantee, as the Gulf states and China show. A fair conclusion is that wealth is one of several supporting conditions, which work together with institutions, inequality and international setting.

Is the theory too Western?

The early theory took Western history as the model, and this is a real weakness. Dependency writers showed that colonial rule and the world economy shaped the path of poor countries, and Sen showed that democratic ideas have roots in many societies. At the same time, some parts of the theory still help. Education, urbanisation and rising expectations are found in every modernising society, and they raise the demand for a voice.

Order or democracy first?

Huntington’s warning, that mobilisation without institutions leads to disorder, is supported by the coups of the 1960s and by many weak states today. But the lesson should not be turned into a defence of dictatorship. The East Asian democracies of South Korea and Taiwan built institutions under authoritarian rule and then opened up, while many authoritarian governments elsewhere failed to build anything lasting. Institutions are needed, but they need not be authoritarian.

What does India teach?

India shows that political institutions, leadership and a shared national movement can sustain democracy at low income. It also shows that voting alone does not remove social inequality, as Ambedkar warned. The Indian experience supports the Rudolphs’ point that tradition and modernity can mix, and Huntington’s point that institutions matter, but it does not support Lipset’s claim that wealth must come first. India’s challenge today is to deepen democracy: to improve the quality of representation, extend social and economic rights, and protect freedoms.

Model concluding paragraph

The relationship between modernisation and democracy is real but conditional. Economic growth, education, urbanisation and new classes create demands for participation and help democracies to last, as Lipset and later writers showed. Yet there is no automatic path. Huntington showed that change needs strong institutions, Moore that the path depends on classes, and the dependency school that the world economy shapes opportunity. East Asia and India, in different ways, show that regimes can differ from the pattern. The best view, therefore, is not that modernisation causes democracy, but that it changes the conditions in which the struggle for democracy is fought.

14. UGC NET: authors, books and a revision tip

UGC NET asks for names, works and ideas. The table gives the usual set for this topic. Check each year and title against the book itself before using it in a written answer.

Author	Work and year	Main idea
Daniel Lerner	The Passing of Traditional Society, 1958	Urbanisation, literacy, media, participation; empathy
S. M. Lipset	Political Man, 1960 (article 1959)	Economic development and stable democracy
W. W. Rostow	The Stages of Economic Growth, 1960	Five stages of growth
G. Almond and J. Coleman	The Politics of the Developing Areas, 1960	Structural-functional approach
Karl Deutsch	Social Mobilization and Political Development, 1961	Social mobilisation
G. Almond and S. Verba	The Civic Culture, 1963	Parochial, subject and participant cultures
David Apter	The Politics of Modernization, 1965	Types of political systems in modernising societies
Barrington Moore	Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, 1966	Three routes to the modern world
S. N. Eisenstadt	Modernization: Protest and Change, 1966	Protest and inclusion; multiple modernities
Samuel Huntington	Political Order in Changing Societies, 1968; The Third Wave, 1991	Institutional gap; praetorianism; waves of democratisation
A. G. Frank	Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America, 1967	Development of underdevelopment
Guillermo O’Donnell	Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism, 1973	Military rule in advanced Latin American economies
Immanuel Wallerstein	The Modern World-System, 1974	Core, semi-periphery, periphery
Rueschemeyer, Stephens and Stephens	Capitalist Development and Democracy, 1992	Role of classes, the working class
Przeworski, Alvarez, Cheibub and Limongi	Democracy and Development, 2000	Wealth sustains democracy but does not cause it
Inglehart and Welzel	Modernization, Cultural Change and Democracy, 2005	Survival to self-expression values
Acemoglu and Robinson	Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, 2006	Elite, masses and the threat of revolution
L. and S. Rudolph	The Modernity of Tradition, 1967	Tradition used in modern Indian politics
Rajni Kothari	Politics in India, 1970	Congress system; caste and politics
Amartya Sen	Development as Freedom, 1999	Freedom as the aim and means of development

Revision tip

Learn the topic in four groups. First, the optimists: Lerner, Lipset, Rostow, Almond. Second, the cautious writers: Huntington (order), Moore (class paths), O’Donnell (authoritarian turn). Third, the critics from the South: Frank, Wallerstein, Sen. Fourth, the later tests: Przeworski, Inglehart, Acemoglu and Robinson. Then add the Indian scholars: Rudolph, Kothari, Srinivas, Kohli, Varshney. Make a card for each with the book, the year and one idea.

15. Key takeaways, sources, books, FAQ and related topics

Key takeaways

Modernisation means the shift from a traditional, farming society to an industrial, urban and educated one; Lipset (1959) argued that richer countries are more likely to sustain democracy.
Przeworski and Limongi found that wealth does not cause democracy but helps it survive; Boix and Stokes argued that it also raises the chance of democratisation; Acemoglu and others doubted a direct effect.
Huntington warned that mobilisation without strong institutions leads to disorder (praetorianism); Moore showed that outcomes depend on class coalitions and routes.
Dependency and world-systems writers, O’Donnell, the East Asian cases and Sen challenge the idea of a single Western path.
Social and cultural change matters: Deutsch (mobilisation), Almond and Verba (civic culture), Putnam (social capital), Inglehart (self-expression values).
India is the great puzzle: universal franchise at low income and literacy in 1950, explained by the Rudolphs, Kothari, Varshney and others through institutions, the adaptation of tradition and leadership, with social gaps that Ambedkar had foreseen.

Official and primary sources

For Indian and world data, students should use official or well-known statistical sources.

Twenty books for further reading

Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics (1960).
Daniel Lerner, The Passing of Traditional Society (1958).
W. W. Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (1960).
Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture (1963).
Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (1968).
Barrington Moore Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (1966).
David Apter, The Politics of Modernization (1965).
Guillermo O’Donnell, Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism (1973).
Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System (1974).
Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (1991).
Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Huber Stephens and John D. Stephens, Capitalist Development and Democracy (1992).
Robert Putnam, Making Democracy Work (1993).
Adam Przeworski, Michael Alvarez, José Cheibub and Fernando Limongi, Democracy and Development (2000).
Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, Modernization, Cultural Change and Democracy (2005).
Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (2006).
Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (1999).
Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne H. Rudolph, The Modernity of Tradition: Political Development in India (1967).
Rajni Kothari, Politics in India (1970).
Atul Kohli, Democracy and Discontent: India’s Growing Crisis of Governability (1990).
Atul Kohli (ed.), The Success of India’s Democracy (2001).

Editions and publishers change, so check the details with your library before citing.

Editorial note

This note is written for students and teachers by PoliPrepHub. It has been prepared from standard textbooks and academic works, but figures, dates and case details can change. If you find an error or want to suggest an improvement, please contact us. Please also read our disclaimer.

Frequently asked questions

What is modernisation in political science? It is the process by which a traditional, rural society becomes industrial, urban, literate and more complex, with new classes and wider political participation.

What is the Lipset thesis? It is the claim, made in 1959, that the more prosperous a nation is, the greater its chance of sustaining democracy.

Does wealth cause democracy? The evidence is mixed. Przeworski and Limongi found that wealth helps democracy survive but does not cause it to appear, while other studies find a causal effect or none.

What did Huntington say about modernisation? He argued that rapid social change without strong political institutions leads to instability and praetorian rule.

What are Barrington Moore’s three routes? The bourgeois revolution leading to democracy (England, France, the United States), the revolution from above leading to fascism (Germany, Japan), and the peasant revolution leading to communism (Russia, China).

Why is India called a puzzle? It adopted universal adult franchise in 1950 with low income and literacy and has kept democracy, which the early theory would not predict.

Which thinkers should I remember for UGC NET? Lerner, Lipset, Rostow, Deutsch, Almond, Huntington, Moore, O’Donnell, Frank, Wallerstein, Przeworski, Inglehart, Acemoglu and Robinson, and the Rudolphs and Kothari for India.