Causal Sequences in Long-Term Democratic Development and Decline

• In Event: Democratization and Regime Change

Abstract

This paper theoretically and empirically combines insights from many schools of thought about democratization. We argue that most of the explanations offered by the literature have some truth to them. Modernization, social movements, geography, dependence on oil exports, demography and culture, institutions, and international forces all play a role in the development and decline of democracy. What has been missing is a clear understanding of which aspects of the development and decline of democracy they each explain: levels, upturns, or downturns. Second, it is necessary to specify the stage of the causal sequence at which each hypothesis matters. Thinking in terms of causal sequences that explain distinct outcomes makes it possible to elaborate a new, holistic general theory of the development and decline of democracy. Empirical tests of these ideas require path analysis – a technique that has been underutilized in this literature.
These insights enable us to propose a more precise account of how democracies develop and decline. Levels of polyarchy develop in three stages. First, distal geographic and demographic preconditions such as climate, proximity to natural harbors, possession of valuable natural resources, and ethnic homogeneity favor economic and social development such as industrialization, high income, and literacy. Second, these aspects of modernization make it possible for a society to develop strong civil society organizations and institutionalized political parties and to build rigorous and impartial public administration, and possibly other helpful institutions. Third, once these organizations and institutions are all in place, they nurture fledgling democratic institutions and practices, both deepening democracy and helping it to survive.
Furthermore, these organizations and institutions reinforce one another, forming a protective belt around democracy. This protective belt explains the “stickiness” of democracy levels: most countries do not change their level of democracy in most years. This is in part because multiple causes contribute to levels of democracy. Therefore, strengths in some compensate for weaknesses in others. It is also because strengths in some causes tend to correct weaknesses in others. The protective belt also protects undemocratic regimes. If transient conditions punctuate that equilibrium, making a transition to democracy possible, it tends to break down before long.
Conditional on the level of democracy, upturns tend to be larger in more developed societies, which correspond to some of the same geographic and demographic conditions that are relevant for levels of democracy. However, the more decisive factors are short-term, proximate social movement activity and economic conditions. Upturns tend to be larger where civil society organizations are free to mount campaigns for change and where these organizations take advantage of such environments. The organizations can be alliances of workers and small farmers; alliances of workers and the middle class; or other sorts of organizations. Non-violent campaigns tend to produce upturns while violent campaigns do not. In addition, upturns tend to be larger during periods of strong global economic growth, even though growth sometimes dampens social movement activity.
Social movement activity and short-term economic performance matters for downturns as well. Downturns tend to be larger when national economic growth is more negative and when there is a strong anti-system movement. This suggests that democracy erodes or breaks down when economic discontent boils over and takes the form of anti-system movements. Indirectly, economic growth tends to be stronger and anti-system movements weaker where there is a rigorous and impartial state.
These accounts of the causes of upturns and downturns help explain the short-turn fluctuations in levels of democracy, but it is important to combine them with the understanding of levels of democracy, which suggests that only changes that are consistent with the strength or weakness of the protective belt around the level of democracy are likely to survive for long. The right kinds of organizations and human effort, where such activity is protected, can make a difference in the short term, especially when economic performance is favorable. However, gains and setbacks are likely to be reversed eventually unless they bring a country into closer alignment with an equilibrium determined by economic and social processes that take many years to develop. Our perspective on the prospects for democratization may be discouraging to those who hope to spur quick and lasting regime change, but we regard it not as defeatist, but as sobering and realistic.

Authors

• Michael J. Coppedge, University of Notre Dame

• Amanda B. Edgell, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa

• Carl Henrik Knutsen, Department of Political Science, University of Oslo

• Staffan I. Lindberg, V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg