democratization

{{further|Hybrid regime}}

File:BTI 2022 DEM.jpg 2022{{cite web | title=Global Dashboard | website=BTI 2022 | url=https://bti-project.org/en/reports/global-dashboard?&cb=00000 | access-date=Apr 17, 2023}}]]

Theories of democratization seek to explain a large macro-level change of a political regime from authoritarianism to democracy. Symptoms of democratization include reform of the electoral system, increased suffrage and reduced political apathy.

Democracy indices enable the quantitative assessment of democratization. Some common democracy indices are Freedom House, Polity data series, V-Dem Democracy indices and Democracy Index. Democracy indices can be quantitative or categorical. Some disagreements among scholars concern the concept of democracy and how to measure democracy – and what democracy indices should be used.

One way to summarize the outcome theories of democratization seek to account is with the idea of waves of democratization

File:Waves of democracy.png

A wave of democratization refers to a major surge of democracy in history. And Samuel P. Huntington identified three waves of democratization that have taken place in history.{{cite book|title=Democratization in the Late 20th century|last=Huntington|first=Samuel P.|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press|year=1991|location=Norman|author-link=Samuel P. Huntington}} The first one brought democracy to Western Europe and Northern America in the 19th century. It was followed by a rise of dictatorships during the Interwar period. The second wave began after World War II, but lost steam between 1962 and the mid-1970s. The latest wave began in 1974 and is still ongoing. Democratization of Latin America and the former Eastern Bloc is part of this third wave.

Waves of democratization can be followed by waves of de-democratization. Thus, Huntington, in 1991, offered the following depiction.

• First wave of democratization, 1828–1926

• First wave of de-democratization, 1922–42

• Second wave of democratization, 1943–62

• Second wave of de-democratization, 1958–75

• Third wave of democratization, 1974–

The idea of waves of democratization has also been used and scrutinized by many other authors, including Renske Doorenspleet,Renske Doorenspleet, "Reassessing the Three Waves of Democratization." World Politics 52(3) 2000: 384–406. John Markoff,John Markoff, Waves of Democracy: Social Movements and Political Change, Second Edition. New York: Routledge, 2015. Seva Gunitsky, and Svend-Erik Skaaning.{{cite journal | url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13510347.2020.1799194 | doi=10.1080/13510347.2020.1799194 | title=Waves of autocratization and democratization: A critical note on conceptualization and measurement | date=2020 | last1=Skaaning | first1=Svend-Erik | journal=Democratization | volume=27 | issue=8 | pages=1533–1542 | s2cid=225378571 | url-access=subscription }}

According to Seva Gunitsky, from the 18th century to the Arab Spring (2011–2012), 13 democratic waves can be identified.{{Cite journal|last=Gunitsky|first=Seva|date=2018|title=Democratic Waves in Historical Perspective|journal=Perspectives on Politics|language=en|volume=16|issue=3|pages=634–651|doi=10.1017/S1537592718001044|s2cid=149523316 |s2cid-access=free |issn=1537-5927 |url=http://individual.utoronto.ca/seva/democratic_waves.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221226044721/http://individual.utoronto.ca/seva/democratic_waves.pdf |archive-date= Dec 26, 2022 }}

The V-Dem Democracy Report identified for the year 2023 9 cases of stand-alone democratization in East Timor, The Gambia, Honduras, Fiji, Dominican Republic, Solomon Islands, Montenegro, Seychelles, and Kosovo and 9 cases of U-Turn Democratization in Thailand, Maldives, Tunisia, Bolivia, Zambia, Benin, North Macedonia, Lesotho, and Brazil.[https://v-dem.net/documents/43/v-dem_dr2024_lowres.pdf Democracy Report 2024, Varieties of Democracy]

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Throughout the history of democracy, enduring democracy advocates succeed almost always through peaceful means when there is a window of opportunity. One major type of opportunity include governments weakened after a violent shock.{{Cite book |last=Miller |first=Michael K. |title=Shock to the system: coups, elections, and war on the road to democratization |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2021 |isbn=978-0-691-21701-7 |location=Princeton Oxford |chapter=Ch. 2}} The other main avenue occurs when autocrats are not threatened by elections, and democratize while retaining power.{{Cite journal |last=Miller |first=Michael K. |date=April 2021 |title=Don't Call It a Comeback: Autocratic Ruling Parties After Democratization |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0007123419000012/type/journal_article |journal=British Journal of Political Science |language=en |volume=51 |issue=2 |pages=559–583 |doi=10.1017/S0007123419000012 |s2cid=203150075 |issn=0007-1234|url-access=subscription }} The path to democracy can be long with setbacks along the way.{{Cite web |last=Berman |first=Sherri |date=January 2007 |title=How Democracy Works: Lessons from Europe |url=http://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/gratis/Berman-18-1.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120211151623/http://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/gratis/Berman-18-1.pdf |archive-date=2012-02-11 |access-date=2008-04-17 |website=Journal of Democracy}}{{Cite web |last=Hegre |first=Håvard |date=May 15, 2014 |title=Democratization and Political Violence |url=https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/democratization-and-political-violence |access-date=2021-02-14 |website=ourworld.unu.edu}}{{Cite journal|last=Andersen|first=David|date=2021|title=Democratization and Violent Conflict: Is There A Scandinavian Exception?|url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9477.12178|journal=Scandinavian Political Studies|language=en|volume=44|issue=1|pages=1–12|doi=10.1111/1467-9477.12178|s2cid=225624391|issn=1467-9477}}

{{Excerpt|Athenian Revolution|paragraphs=1}}

{{Excerpt|1989–1990 unrest in Benin|paragraphs=1}}

{{Excerpt|Redemocratization in Brazil|paragraphs=1}}

{{Excerpt|Chilean transition to democracy|paragraphs=1}}

The French Revolution (1789) briefly allowed a wide franchise. The French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars lasted for more than twenty years. The French Directory was more oligarchic. The First French Empire and the Bourbon Restoration restored more autocratic rule. The French Second Republic had universal male suffrage but was followed by the Second French Empire. The Franco-Prussian War (1870–71) resulted in the French Third Republic.

Germany established its first democracy in 1919 with the creation of the Weimar Republic, a parliamentary republic created following the German Empire's defeat in World War I. The Weimar Republic lasted only 14 years before it collapsed and was replaced by Nazi dictatorship.Stefan Berger, "The Attempt at Democratization under Weimar" in European Democratization since 1800. Eds. John Garrard, Vera Tolz & Ralph White (Springer, 2000), pp. 96–115. Historians continue to debate the reasons why the Weimar Republic's attempt at democratization failed. After Germany was militarily defeated in World War II, democracy was reestablished in West Germany during the U.S.-led occupation which undertook the denazification of society.Richard L. Merritt, Democracy Imposed: U.S. Occupation Policy and the German Public, 1945–1949 (Yale University Press, 1995).

File:Magna Carta (British Library Cotton MS Augustus II.106).jpg

In Great Britain, there was renewed interest in Magna Carta in the 17th century.{{Cite web |title=From legal document to public myth: Magna Carta in the 17th century |url=https://www.bl.uk/magna-carta/videos/from-legal-document-to-public-myth-magna-carta-in-the-17th-century |access-date=2017-10-16 |website=The British Library |postscript=none |archive-date=2017-10-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171018101349/https://www.bl.uk/magna-carta/videos/from-legal-document-to-public-myth-magna-carta-in-the-17th-century |url-status=dead }}; {{Cite web |title=Magna Carta: Magna Carta in the 17th Century |url=https://www.sal.org.uk/events/2015/06/magna-carta-magna-carta-in-the-17th-century/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180925053248/https://www.bl.uk/magna-carta/videos/from-legal-document-to-public-myth-magna-carta-in-the-17th-century |archive-date=2018-09-25 |access-date=2017-10-16 |website=The Society of Antiquaries of London }} The Parliament of England enacted the Petition of Right in 1628 which established certain liberties for subjects. The English Civil War (1642–1651) was fought between the King and an oligarchic but elected Parliament,{{cite web |title=Origins and growth of Parliament |url=http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/citizenship/citizen_subject/origins.htm |access-date=7 April 2015 |publisher=The National Archives}} during which the idea of a political party took form with groups debating rights to political representation during the Putney Debates of 1647.{{cite web |title=Putney debates |url=https://www.bl.uk/taking-liberties/articles/putney-debates |access-date=22 December 2016 |publisher=The British Library |archive-date=22 December 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161222223321/https://www.bl.uk/taking-liberties/articles/putney-debates |url-status=dead }} Subsequently, the Protectorate (1653–59) and the English Restoration (1660) restored more autocratic rule although Parliament passed the Habeas Corpus Act in 1679, which strengthened the convention that forbade detention lacking sufficient cause or evidence. The Glorious Revolution in 1688 established a strong Parliament that passed the Bill of Rights 1689, which codified certain rights and liberties for individuals.{{cite web |title=Britain's unwritten constitution |url=http://www.bl.uk/magna-carta/articles/britains-unwritten-constitution |access-date=27 November 2015 |publisher=British Library |quote=The key landmark is the Bill of Rights (1689), which established the supremacy of Parliament over the Crown.... The Bill of Rights (1689) then settled the primacy of Parliament over the monarch's prerogatives, providing for the regular meeting of Parliament, free elections to the Commons, free speech in parliamentary debates, and some basic human rights, most famously freedom from 'cruel or unusual punishment'. |archive-date=8 December 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151208232341/http://www.bl.uk/magna-carta/articles/britains-unwritten-constitution |url-status=dead }} It set out the requirement for regular parliaments, free elections, rules for freedom of speech in Parliament and limited the power of the monarch, ensuring that, unlike much of the rest of Europe, royal absolutism would not prevail.{{cite web |title=Constitutionalism: America & Beyond |url=http://www.ait.org.tw/infousa/zhtw/DOCS/Demopaper/dmpaper2.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141024130317/http://www.ait.org.tw/infousa/zhtw/DOCS/Demopaper/dmpaper2.html |archive-date=24 October 2014 |access-date=30 October 2014 |publisher=Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP), U.S. Department of State |quote=The earliest, and perhaps greatest, victory for liberalism was achieved in England. The rising commercial class that had supported the Tudor monarchy in the 16th century led the revolutionary battle in the 17th, and succeeded in establishing the supremacy of Parliament and, eventually, of the House of Commons. What emerged as the distinctive feature of modern constitutionalism was not the insistence on the idea that the king is subject to law (although this concept is an essential attribute of all constitutionalism). This notion was already well established in the Middle Ages. What was distinctive was the establishment of effective means of political control whereby the rule of law might be enforced. Modern constitutionalism was born with the political requirement that representative government depended upon the consent of citizen subjects.... However, as can be seen through provisions in the 1689 Bill of Rights, the English Revolution was fought not just to protect the rights of property (in the narrow sense) but to establish those liberties which liberals believed essential to human dignity and moral worth. The "rights of man" enumerated in the English Bill of Rights gradually were proclaimed beyond the boundaries of England, notably in the American Declaration of Independence of 1776 and in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man in 1789.}}{{cite web |title=Rise of Parliament |url=http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/citizenship/rise_parliament/citizenship2.htm |access-date=2010-08-22 |publisher=The National Archives}} Only with the Representation of the People Act 1884 did a majority of the males get the vote.

{{Excerpt|Metapolitefsi|paragraphs=1}}

{{Further|Liberal democracy period in Indonesia|Post-Suharto era in Indonesia}}

File:Carlo Alberto firma lo Statuto.jpg signs the Albertine Statute, 4 March 1848.]]

File:Costituzione della Repubblica Italiana.jpg, came into force on 1 January 1948 after the 1946 Italian institutional referendum.]]

In September 1847, violent riots inspired by Liberals broke out in Reggio Calabria and in Messina in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which were put down by the military. On 12 January 1848 a rising in Palermo spread throughout the island and served as a spark for the Revolutions of 1848 all over Europe. After similar revolutionary outbursts in Salerno, south of Naples, and in the Cilento region which were backed by the majority of the intelligentsia of the Kingdom, on 29 January 1848 King Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies was forced to grant a constitution, using for a pattern the French Charter of 1830. This constitution was quite advanced for its time in liberal democratic terms, as was the proposal of a unified Italian confederation of states.{{cite web|url=https://pti.regione.sicilia.it/portal/page/portal/PIR_PORTALE/PIR_150ANNI/PIR_150ANNISITO/PIR_Schede/PIR_Gliautonomistisiciliani|title=AUTONOMISMO E UNITÀ|access-date=16 September 2023|language=it}} On 11 February 1848, Leopold II of Tuscany, first cousin of Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria, granted the Constitution, with the general approval of his subjects. The Habsburg example was followed by Charles Albert of Sardinia (Albertine Statute; later became the constitution of the unified Kingdom of Italy and remained in force, with changes, until 1948{{cite book|last=Mack Smith|first=Denis |title=Modern Italy: A Political History|publisher=Yale University Press |year=1997}}) and by Pope Pius IX (Fundamental Statute). However, only King Charles Albert maintained the statute even after the end of the riots.

The Kingdom of Italy, after the unification of Italy in 1861, was a constitutional monarchy. The new kingdom was governed by a parliamentary constitutional monarchy dominated by liberals.{{efn|In 1848, Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour had formed a parliamentary group in the Kingdom of Sardinia Parliament named the Partito Liberale Italiano (Italian Liberal Party). From 1860, with the Unification of Italy substantially realized and the death of Cavour himself in 1861, the Liberal Party was split into at least two major factions or new parties later known as the Destra Storica on the right-wing, who substantially assembled the Count of Cavour's followers and political heirs; and the Sinistra Storica on the left-wing, who mostly reunited the followers and sympathizers of Giuseppe Garibaldi and other former Mazzinians. The Historical Right (Destra Storica) and the Historical Left (Sinistra Storica) were composed of royalist liberals. At the same time, radicals organized themselves into the Radical Party and republicans into the Italian Republican Party.}} The Italian Socialist Party increased in strength, challenging the traditional liberal and conservative establishment. From 1915 to 1918, the Kingdom of Italy took part in World War I on the side of the Entente and against the Central Powers. In 1922, following a period of crisis and turmoil, the Italian fascist dictatorship was established. During World War II, Italy was first part of the Axis until it surrendered to the Allied powers (1940–1943) and then, as part of its territory was occupied by Nazi Germany with fascist collaboration, a co-belligerent of the Allies during the Italian resistance and the subsequent Italian Civil War, and the liberation of Italy (1943–1945). The aftermath of World War II left Italy also with an anger against the monarchy for its endorsement of the Fascist regime for the previous twenty years. These frustrations contributed to a revival of the Italian republican movement.{{Citation|year=1970|title=Italia|encyclopedia=Dizionario enciclopedico italiano|volume=VI|page=456|publisher=Treccani|language=it}} Italy became a republic after the 1946 Italian institutional referendum{{cite video |year=1946 |title=Damage Foreshadows A-Bomb Test, 1946/06/06 (1946) |url=https://archive.org/details/1946-06-06_Damage_Foreshadows_A-Bomb_Test |publisher=Universal Newsreel |access-date=22 February 2012}} held on 2 June, a day celebrated since as Festa della Repubblica. Italy has a written democratic constitution, resulting from the work of a Constituent Assembly formed by the representatives of all the anti-fascist forces that contributed to the defeat of Nazi and Fascist forces during the liberation of Italy and the Italian Civil War,Smyth, Howard McGaw Italy: From Fascism to the Republic (1943–1946) The Western Political Quarterly vol. 1 no. 3 (pp. 205–222), September 1948.{{JSTOR|442274}} and coming into force on 1 January 1948.

In Japan, limited democratic reforms were introduced during the Meiji period (when the industrial modernization of Japan began), the Taishō period (1912–1926), and the early Shōwa period.Kent E. Calder, "East Asian Democratic Transitions" in The Making and Unmaking of Democracy: Lessons from History and World Politics (eds. Theodore K. Rabb & Ezra N. Suleiman: Routledge, 2003). pp. 251–59. Despite pro-democracy movements such as the Freedom and People's Rights Movement (1870s and 1880s) and some proto-democratic institutions, Japanese society remained constrained by a highly conservative society and bureaucracy. Historian Kent E. Calder notes that writers that "Meiji leadership embraced constitutional government with some pluralist features for essentially tactical reasons" and that pre-World war II Japanese society was dominated by a "loose coalition" of "landed rural elites, big business, and the military" that was averse to pluralism and reformism. While the Imperial Diet survived the impacts of Japanese militarism, the Great Depression, and the Pacific War, other pluralistic institutions, such as political parties, did not. After World War II, during the Allied occupation, Japan adopted a much more vigorous, pluralistic democracy.

File:Elecciones 1888 valpo.png

{{Excerpt|1990–1992 movement in Madagascar|paragraphs=1}}

{{Excerpt|1993 Malawian democracy referendum|paragraphs=2}}

Countries in Latin America became independent between 1810 and 1825, and soon had some early experiences with representative government and elections. All Latin American countries established representative institutions soon after independence, the early cases being those of Colombia in 1810, Paraguay and Venezuela in 1811, and Chile in 1818.Adam Przeworski and Henry Teune, Democracy and the Limits of Self-Government. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, p. 47. Adam Przeworski shows that some experiments with representative institutions in Latin America occurred earlier than in most European countries.Adam Przeworski and Henry Teune, Democracy and the Limits of Self-Government. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, p. 2; Przeworski, Adam, "The Mechanics of Regime Instability in Latin America." Journal of Politics in Latin America 1(1) 2009: 5–36. Mass democracy, in which the working class had the right to vote, become common only in the 1930s and 1940s.Collier, Ruth Berins, and David Collier. Shaping the Political Arena: Critical Junctures, the Labor Movement, and Regime Dynamics in Latin America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991; Rueschemeyer, Dietrich, Evelyne Huber Stephens, and John D. Stephens, Capitalist Development and Democracy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992; Collier, Ruth Berins, Paths Toward Democracy: The Working Class and Elites in Western Europe and South America. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1999; Drake, Paul W.. Between Tyranny and Anarchy: A History of Democracy in Latin America, 1800–2006. Redwood City: Stanford University Press, 2009.

{{Excerpt|Portuguese transition to democracy|paragraphs=1}}

{{Excerpt|Democratization in Senegal|paragraphs=1}}

{{Excerpt|Spanish transition to democracy|paragraphs=1,2}}

{{Excerpt|Negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa|paragraphs=1}}

{{Excerpt|June Democratic Struggle|paragraphs=1}}

{{Excerpt|Demokratizatsiya (Soviet Union)|paragraphs=1}}

{{Excerpt|Switzerland as a federal state|paragraphs=1|only=paragraphs}}

{{Excerpt|Overthrow of the Roman monarchy|paragraphs=1}}

{{Excerpt|Tunisian Revolution|paragraphs=1}}

{{Excerpt|1989–1991 Ukrainian revolution|paragraphs=1|only=paragraphs}}

The American Revolution (1765–1783) created the United States. The new Constitution established a relatively strong federal national government that included an executive, a national judiciary, and a bicameral Congress that represented states in the Senate and the population in the House of Representatives.Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1992)Greene and Pole (1994) chapter 70 In many fields, it was a success ideologically in the sense that a true republic was established that never had a single dictator, but voting rights were initially restricted to white male property owners (about 6% of the population).{{cite web |title=Expansion of Rights and Liberties – The Right of Suffrage |url=https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/charters_of_freedom_13.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160706144856/http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/charters_of_freedom_13.html |archive-date=July 6, 2016 |access-date=April 21, 2015 |website=Online Exhibit: The Charters of Freedom |publisher=National Archives}} Slavery was not abolished in the Southern states until the constitutional Amendments of the Reconstruction era following the American Civil War (1861–1865). The provision of Civil Rights for African-Americans to overcome post-Reconstruction Jim Crow segregation in the South was achieved in the 1960s.

There is considerable debate about the factors which affect (e.g., promote or limit) democratization.{{cite journal |last1=Gerring |first1=John |last2=Knutsen |first2=Carl Henrik |last3=Berge |first3=Jonas |title=Does Democracy Matter? |journal=Annual Review of Political Science |date=2022 |volume=25 |pages=357–375 |doi=10.1146/annurev-polisci-060820-060910 |doi-access=free|hdl=10852/100947 |hdl-access=free }} Factors discussed include economic, political, cultural, individual agents and their choices, international and historical.

File:Museum of Science and Industry, Power Hall - geograph.org.uk - 3025961.jpg

Scholars such as Seymour Martin Lipset;{{Cite journal|last=Lipset|first=Seymour Martin|s2cid=53686238|date=1959|title=Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy|journal=The American Political Science Review|volume=53|issue=1|pages=69–105|doi=10.2307/1951731|issn=0003-0554|jstor=1951731}} Carles Boix, Susan Stokes,{{Cite journal|last1=Boix|first1=Carles|last2=Stokes|first2=Susan C.|date=2003|title=Endogenous Democratization|journal=World Politics|language=en|volume=55|issue=4|pages=517–549|doi=10.1353/wp.2003.0019|issn=0043-8871|s2cid=18745191}}Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Stephens, and John Stephens{{Cite book|title=Capitalist Development and Democracy|publisher=University Of Chicago Press|year=1992}} argue that economic development increases the likelihood of democratization. Initially argued by Lipset in 1959, this has subsequently been referred to as modernization theory.{{Cite web|last=Geddes|first=Barbara|editor1-first=Robert E|editor1-last=Goodin|date=2011|title=What Causes Democratization|url=https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199604456.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199604456-e-029|url-status=live|website=The Oxford Handbook of Political Science|language=en|doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199604456.001.0001|isbn=978-0-19-960445-6|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140530042316/http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com:80/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199604456.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199604456-e-029 |archive-date=2014-05-30 }}{{Cite journal|last=Korom|first=Philipp|date=2019|title=The political sociologist Seymour M. Lipset: Remembered in political science, neglected in sociology|journal=European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology|volume=6|issue=4|pages=448–473|doi=10.1080/23254823.2019.1570859|issn=2325-4823|pmc=7099882|pmid=32309461}} According to Daniel Treisman, there is "a strong and consistent relationship between higher income and both democratization and democratic survival in the medium term (10–20 years), but not necessarily in shorter time windows."{{Cite journal|last=Treisman|first=Daniel|date=2020|title=Economic Development and Democracy: Predispositions and Triggers|journal=Annual Review of Political Science|volume=23|pages=241–257|doi=10.1146/annurev-polisci-050718-043546|issn=1094-2939|doi-access=free}} Robert Dahl argued that market economies provided favorable conditions for democratic institutions.{{Cite web|url=https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300194463/democracy|title=On Democracy|last=Dahl|first=Robert|website=yalebooks.yale.edu|publisher=Yale University Press|access-date=2020-02-02}}

A higher GDP/capita correlates with democracy. Some ^Who? claim the wealthiest democracies have never been observed to fall into authoritarianism.{{cite book | last = Przeworski | first = Adam | author-link = Adam Przeworski| title = Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-Being in the World, 1950–1990 | publisher = Cambridge University Press | year = 2000 | location = Cambridge|display-authors=etal}} The rise of Hitler and of the Nazis in Weimar Germany can be seen as an obvious counter-example. Although, in early 1930s, Germany was already an advanced economy. By that time, the country was also living in a state of economic crisis virtually since the first World War (in the 1910s). A crisis that was eventually worsened by the effects of the Great Depression. There is also the general observation that democracy was very rare before the industrial revolution. Empirical research thus led many to believe that economic development either increases chances for a transition to democracy, or helps newly established democracies consolidate.{{Cite journal|last1=Rice|first1=Tom W.|last2=Ling|first2=Jeffrey|date=2002-12-01|title=Democracy, Economic Wealth and Social Capital: Sorting Out the Causal Connections |journal=Space and Polity|volume=6|issue=3|pages=307–325|doi=10.1080/1356257022000031995|s2cid=144947268|issn=1356-2576}}

One study finds that economic development prompts democratization but only in the medium run (10–20 years). This is because development may entrench the incumbent leader while making it more difficult for him deliver the state to a son or trusted aide when he exits.{{Cite journal|title = Income, Democracy, and Leader Turnover|journal = American Journal of Political Science|date = 2015-10-01|issn = 1540-5907|pages = 927–942|volume = 59|issue = 4|doi = 10.1111/ajps.12135|language = en|first = Daniel|last = Treisman| s2cid=154067095 |url = https://zenodo.org/record/895598}} However, the debate about whether democracy is a consequence of wealth is far from conclusive.{{cite journal | last1 = Traversa | first1 = Federico | year = 2014 | title = Income and the stability of democracy: Pushing beyond the borders of logic to explain a strong correlation? | journal = Constitutional Political Economy | volume = 26| issue = 2| pages = 121–136| doi = 10.1007/s10602-014-9175-x | s2cid = 154420163 }}

Another study suggests that economic development depends on the political stability of a country to promote democracy.{{cite journal|last1=FENG|first1=YI|title=Democracy, Political Stability and Economic Growth|journal=British Journal of Political Science|date=July 1997|volume=27|issue=3|pages=416, 391–418|doi=10.1017/S0007123497000197|doi-broken-date=2024-11-14 |s2cid=154749945 }} Clark, Robert and Golder, in their reformulation of Albert Hirschman's model of Exit, Voice and Loyalty, explain how it is not the increase of wealth in a country per se which influences a democratization process, but rather the changes in the socio-economic structures that come together with the increase of wealth. They explain how these structural changes have been called out to be one of the main reasons several European countries became democratic. When their socioeconomic structures shifted because modernization made the agriculture sector more efficient, bigger investments of time and resources were used for the manufacture and service sectors. In England, for example, members of the gentry began investing more in commercial activities that allowed them to become economically more important for the state. These new kinds of productive activities came with new economic power. Their assets became more difficult for the state to count and hence, more difficult to tax. Because of this, predation was no longer possible and the state had to negotiate with the new economic elites to extract revenue. A sustainable bargain had to be reached because the state became more dependent on its citizens remaining loyal, and with this, citizens now had the leverage to be taken into account in the decision making process for the country.{{cite journal |last1=Clark |first1=William Roberts |first2=Matt |last2=Golder |first3=Sona N. |last3=Golder |year=2013 |title=Power and politics: insights from an exit, voice, and loyalty game |journal=Unpublished Manuscript |url=https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/pegroup/files/clark_golder.pdf }}{{Unreliable source?|date=April 2018}}"Origins and growth of Parliament". The National Archives. Retrieved 7 April 2015.[http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/citizenship/citizen_subject/origins.htm "Origins and growth of Parliament". The National Archives. Retrieved 7 April 2015.]

Adam Przeworski and Fernando Limongi argue that while economic development makes democracies less likely to turn authoritarian, there is insufficient evidence to conclude that development causes democratization (turning an authoritarian state into a democracy).{{Cite journal|last1=Przeworski|first1=Adam|last2=Limongi|first2=Fernando|date=1997|title=Modernization: Theories and Facts|journal=World Politics|volume=49|issue=2|pages=155–183|issn=0043-8871|jstor=25053996|doi=10.1353/wp.1997.0004|s2cid=5981579}} Economic development can boost public support for authoritarian regimes in the short-to-medium term.{{Cite book|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/voting-for-autocracy/F6671D230EC7C458A30035ADB20F9289|title=Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and its Demise in Mexico|last=Magaloni|first=Beatriz|date=September 2006|publisher=Cambridge Core|doi=10.1017/CBO9780511510274 |isbn=9780521862479 |language=en|access-date=2019-12-17}} Andrew J. Nathan argues that China is a problematic case for the thesis that economic development causes democratization.{{Cite web|url=https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the-puzzle-of-the-chinese-middle-class/|title=The Puzzle of the Chinese Middle Class|website=Journal of Democracy|language=en-US|access-date=2019-12-22}} Michael Miller finds that development increases the likelihood of "democratization in regimes that are fragile and unstable, but makes this fragility less likely to begin with."{{Cite journal|last=Miller|first=Michael K.|date=2012|title=Economic Development, Violent Leader Removal, and Democratization|journal=American Journal of Political Science|language=en|volume=56|issue=4|pages=1002–1020|doi=10.1111/j.1540-5907.2012.00595.x}}

There is research to suggest that greater urbanization, through various pathways, contributes to democratization.{{Cite journal|last1=Glaeser|first1=Edward L.|last2=Steinberg|first2=Bryce Millett|date=2017|title=Transforming Cities: Does Urbanization Promote Democratic Change?|url=http://www.nber.org/papers/w22860.pdf|journal=Regional Studies|volume=51|issue=1|pages=58–68|doi=10.1080/00343404.2016.1262020|bibcode=2017RegSt..51...58G |s2cid=157638952}}{{Cite journal|last1=Barceló|first1=Joan|last2=Rosas|first2=Guillermo|date=2020|title=Endogenous democracy: causal evidence from the potato productivity shock in the old world|journal=Political Science Research and Methods|volume=9|issue=3|language=en|pages=650–657|doi=10.1017/psrm.2019.62|issn=2049-8470|doi-access=free}}

Numerous scholars and political thinkers have linked a large middle class to the emergence and sustenance of democracy,{{Cite web|url=https://www.iep.utm.edu/aris-pol/|title=Aristotle: Politics {{!}} Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy|website=www.iep.utm.edu|access-date=2020-02-03}} whereas others have challenged this relationship.{{Cite book|last=Rosenfeld|first=Bryn|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jbjtDwAAQBAJ|title=The Autocratic Middle Class: How State Dependency Reduces the Demand for Democracy|date=2020|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-20977-7|language=en}}

In "Non-Modernization" (2022), Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson argue that modernization theory cannot account for various paths of political development "because it posits a link between economics and politics that is not conditional on institutions and culture and that presumes a definite endpoint—for example, an 'end of history'."{{cite journal | url=https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/epdf/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051120-103913 | doi=10.1146/annurev-polisci-051120-103913 | title=Non-Modernization: Power–Culture Trajectories and the Dynamics of Political Institutions | year=2022 | last1=Acemoglu | first1=Daron | last2=Robinson | first2=James | journal=Annual Review of Political Science | volume=25 | pages=323–339 | hdl=1721.1/144425 | hdl-access=free }}

A meta-analysis by Gerardo L. Munck of research on Lipset's argument shows that a majority of studies do not support the thesis that higher levels of economic development leads to more democracy.Gerardo L.Munck, "Modernization Theory as a Case of Failed Knowledge Production." The Annals of Comparative Democratization 16, 3 (2018): 37–41. [https://mk0apsaconnectbvy6p6.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/26/2018/10/2018_16_3-Annals_of_CD_September.pdf] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190813130345/https://mk0apsaconnectbvy6p6.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/26/2018/10/2018_16_3-Annals_of_CD_September.pdf|date=2019-08-13}}

A 2024 study linked industrialization to democratization, arguing that large-scale employment in manufacturing made mass mobilization easier to occur and harder to repress.{{Cite journal |last=Van Noort |first=Sam |date=2024 |title=Industrialization and Democracy |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/933069 |journal=World Politics |volume=76 |issue=3 |pages=457–498 |doi=10.1353/wp.2024.a933069 |issn=1086-3338}}

Theories on causes to democratization such as economic development focuses on the aspect of gaining capital. Capital mobility focuses on the movement of money across borders of countries, different financial instruments, and the corresponding restrictions. In the past, there have been multiple theories as to what the relationship is between capital mobility and democratization. FREEMAN, J. R., & QUINN, D. P. (2012). The Economic Origins of Democracy Reconsidered. American Political Science Review, 106(1), 58–80. doi:10.1017/S0003055411000505

The “doomsway view” is that capital mobility is an inherent threat to underdeveloped democracies by the worsening of economic inequalities, favoring the interests of powerful elites and external actors over the rest of society. This might lead to depending on money from outside, therefore affecting the economic situation in other countries. Sylvia Maxfield argues that a bigger demand for transparency in both the private and public sectors by some investors can contribute to a strengthening of democratic institutions and can encourage democratic consolidation. Maxfield, S. (2000). Capital Mobility and Democratic Stability. Journal of Democracy 11(4), 95-106. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2000.0080.

A 2016 study found that preferential trade agreements can increase democratization of a country, especially trading with other democracies.{{Cite journal|last1=Manger|first1=Mark S.|last2=Pickup|first2=Mark A.|date=2016-02-01|title=The Coevolution of Trade Agreement Networks and Democracy|journal=Journal of Conflict Resolution|language=en|volume=60|issue=1|pages=164–191|doi=10.1177/0022002714535431|s2cid=154493227|issn=0022-0027}} A 2020 study found increased trade between democracies reduces democratic backsliding, while trade between democracies and autocracies reduces democratization of the autocracies.{{cite journal | last=Pronin | first=Pavel | title=International Trade And Democracy: How Trade Partners Affect Regime Change And Persistence | journal=SSRN Electronic Journal | publisher=Elsevier BV | year=2020 | issn=1556-5068 | doi=10.2139/ssrn.3717614 | page=| url=https://wp.hse.ru/data/2020/10/23/1373846754/75PS2020.pdf }} Trade and capital mobility often involve international organizations, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and World Trade Organization (WTO), which can condition financial assistance or trade agreements on democratic reforms.Chwieroth, J. M. (2010). Capital Ideas: The IMF and the Rise of Financial Liberalization. Princeton University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7sbnq

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Sociologist Barrington Moore Jr., in his influential Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (1966), argues that the distribution of power among classes – the peasantry, the bourgeoise and the landed aristocracy – and the nature of alliances between classes determined whether democratic, authoritarian or communist revolutions occurred.{{cite book|title=Social origins of dictatorship and democracy: lord and peasant in the making of the modern world|last=Moore|first=Barrington Jr.|publisher=Beacon Press|year=1993|isbn=978-0-8070-5073-6|edition=with a new foreword by Edward Friedman and James C. Scott|location=Boston|page=430|author-link=Barrington Moore, Jr.|orig-date=1966}} Moore also argued there were at least "three routes to the modern world" – the liberal democratic, the fascist, and the communist – each deriving from the timing of industrialization and the social structure at the time of transition. Thus, Moore challenged modernization theory, by stressing that there was not one path to the modern world and that economic development did not always bring about democracy.Jørgen Møller, State Formation, Regime Change, and Economic Development. London: Routledge Press, 2017, Ch. 6.

Many authors have questioned parts of Moore's arguments. Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Stephens, and John D. Stephens, in Capitalist Development and Democracy (1992), raise questions about Moore's analysis of the role of the bourgeoisie in democratization.Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Stephens, and John D. Stephens. 1992. Capitalist Development and Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Eva Bellin argues that under certain circumstances, the bourgeoise and labor are more likely to favor democratization, but less so under other circumstances.{{Cite journal|last=Bellin|first=Eva|date=January 2000|title=Contingent Democrats: Industrialists, Labor, and Democratization in Late-Developing Countries|journal=World Politics|language=en|volume=52|issue=2|pages=175–205|doi=10.1017/S0043887100002598|s2cid=54044493|issn=1086-3338}} Samuel Valenzuela argues that, counter to Moore's view, the landed elite supported democratization in Chile.J. Samuel Valenzuela, 2001. "Class Relations and Democratization: A Reassessment of Barrington Moore's Model", pp. 240–86, in Miguel Angel Centeno and Fernando López-Alves (eds.), The Other Mirror: Grand Theory Through the Lens of Latin America. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. A comprehensive assessment conducted by James Mahoney concludes that "Moore's specific hypotheses about democracy and authoritarianism receive only limited and highly conditional support."James Mahoney, "Knowledge Accumulation in Comparative Historical Research: The Case of Democracy and Authoritarianism," pp. 131–74, in James Mahoney and Dietrich Rueschemeyer (eds.), Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 145. For an earlier review of a wide range of critical response to Social Origins, see Jon Wiener, "Review of Reviews: Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy", History and Theory 15 (1976), 146–75.

A 2020 study linked democratization to the mechanization of agriculture: as landed elites became less reliant on the repression of agricultural workers, they became less hostile to democracy.{{Cite journal|last1=Samuels|first1=David J.|last2=Thomson|first2=Henry|date=2020|title=Lord, Peasant … and Tractor? Agricultural Mechanization, Moore's Thesis, and the Emergence of Democracy|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/lord-peasant-and-tractor-agricultural-mechanization-moores-thesis-and-the-emergence-of-democracy/0D322FCC606F75D44D9446358F3B9690/share/fa7c5e053c9936ef179231a40604b88d8eac9957|journal=Perspectives on Politics|volume=19|issue=3|language=en|pages=739–753|doi=10.1017/S1537592720002303|s2cid=225466533|issn=1537-5927|url-access=subscription}}

According to political scientist David Stasavage, representative government is "more likely to occur when a society is divided across multiple political cleavages."{{Cite book|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/public-debt-and-the-birth-of-the-democratic-state/9995D18B9CC015BA69C37133E44DDE23|title=Public Debt and the Birth of the Democratic State: France and Great Britain 1688–1789|author1-link=David Stasavage|last=Stasavage|first=David|date=2003|publisher=Cambridge University Press|language=en|doi=10.1017/cbo9780511510557|access-date=2019-12-24|isbn=9780521809672}} A 2021 study found that constitutions that emerge through pluralism (reflecting distinct segments of society) are more likely to induce liberal democracy (at least, in the short term).{{Cite journal|last1=Negretto|first1=Gabriel L.|last2=Sánchez-Talanquer|first2=Mariano|date=2021|title=Constitutional Origins and Liberal Democracy: A Global Analysis, 1900–2015|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/abs/constitutional-origins-and-liberal-democracy-a-global-analysis-19002015/AD138F031B07119CBEF099B8879FB888|journal=American Political Science Review|language=en|volume=115|issue=2|pages=522–536|doi=10.1017/S0003055420001069|hdl=10016/39537 |s2cid=232422425|issn=0003-0554|via=|hdl-access=free}}

Robert Bates and Donald Lien, as well as David Stasavage, have argued that rulers' need for taxes gave asset-owning elites the bargaining power to demand a say on public policy, thus giving rise to democratic institutions.{{Cite journal|last1=Bates|first1=Robert H.|last2=Donald Lien|first2=Da-Hsiang|date=March 1985|title=A Note on Taxation, Development, and Representative Government|journal=Politics & Society|language=en-US|volume=14|issue=1|pages=53–70|doi=10.1177/003232928501400102|s2cid=154910942|issn=0032-3292|url=https://authors.library.caltech.edu/81503/1/sswp567.pdf}}{{Cite journal|last=Stasavage|first=David|date=2016-05-11|title=Representation and Consent: Why They Arose in Europe and Not Elsewhere|journal=Annual Review of Political Science|volume=19|issue=1|pages=145–162|doi=10.1146/annurev-polisci-043014-105648| doi-access=free | issn=1094-2939}}{{Cite book|last=Stasavage, David|title=Decline and rise of democracy: a global history from antiquity to today|date=2020|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-17746-5|oclc=1125969950}} Montesquieu argued that the mobility of commerce meant that rulers had to bargain with merchants in order to tax them, otherwise they would leave the country or hide their commercial activities.{{Cite book|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/book/30312|title=Bounding Power: Republican Security Theory from the Polis to the Global Village|last=Deudney|first=Daniel H.|date=2010|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-1-4008-3727-4|language=en}} Stasavage argues that the small size and backwardness of European states, as well as the weakness of European rulers, after the fall of the Roman Empire meant that European rulers had to obtain consent from their population to govern effectively.

According to Clark, Golder, and Golder, an application of Albert O. Hirschman's exit, voice, and loyalty model is that if individuals have plausible exit options, then a government may be more likely to democratize. James C. Scott argues that governments may find it difficult to claim a sovereignty over a population when that population is in motion.{{Cite book|last=Scott |first=James C. |url=https://archive.org/details/artofnotbeinggov0000scot/page/7 |title=The Art of not being governed: an anarchist history of upland Southeast Asia|date=2010|publisher=NUS Press|isbn=9780300152289|pages=[https://archive.org/details/artofnotbeinggov0000scot/page/7 7]|oclc=872296825}} Scott additionally asserts that exit may not solely include physical exit from the territory of a coercive state, but can include a number of adaptive responses to coercion that make it more difficult for states to claim sovereignty over a population. These responses can include planting crops that are more difficult for states to count, or tending livestock that are more mobile. In fact, the entire political arrangement of a state is a result of individuals adapting to the environment, and making a choice as to whether or not to stay in a territory. If people are free to move, then the exit, voice, and loyalty model predicts that a state will have to be of that population representative, and appease the populace in order to prevent them from leaving.{{Cite web|title=Power and politics: insights from an exit, voice, and loyalty game.|url=http://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/pegroup/files/clark_golder.pdf}} If individuals have plausible exit options then they are better able to constrain a government's arbitrary behaviour through threat of exit.

Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson argued that the relationship between social equality and democratic transition is complicated: People have less incentive to revolt in an egalitarian society (for example, Singapore), so the likelihood of democratization is lower. In a highly unequal society (for example, South Africa under Apartheid), the redistribution of wealth and power in a democracy would be so harmful to elites that these would do everything to prevent democratization. Democratization is more likely to emerge somewhere in the middle, in the countries, whose elites offer concessions because (1) they consider the threat of a revolution credible and (2) the cost of the concessions is not too high.{{cite book | last = Acemoglu | first = Daron |author2=James A. Robinson | title = Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy | publisher = Cambridge University Press | year = 2006 | location = Cambridge}} This expectation is in line with the empirical research showing that democracy is more stable in egalitarian societies.

Other approaches to the relationship between inequality and democracy have been presented by Carles Boix, Stephan Haggard and Robert Kaufman, and Ben Ansell and David Samuels.Special issue on "Inequality and Democratization: What Do We Know?"American Political Science Association. Comparative Democratization 11(3)2013.[https://doi.org/10.1080/1350178X.2015.1069372 Krauss, Alexander. "The scientific limits of understanding the (potential) relationship between complex social phenomena: the case of democracy and inequality." Journal of Economic Methodology 23.1 (2016): 97–109.]

In their 2019 book The Narrow Corridor and a 2022 study in the American Political Science Review, Acemoglu and Robinson argue that the nature of the relationship between elites and society determine whether stable democracy emerges. When elites are overly dominant, despotic states emerge. When society is overly dominant, weak states emerge. When elites and society are evenly balance, inclusive states emerge.{{Cite journal |last1=Acemoglu |first1=Daron |last2=Robinson |first2=James A. |date=2022 |title=Weak, Despotic, or Inclusive? How State Type Emerges from State versus Civil Society Competition |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/abs/weak-despotic-or-inclusive-how-state-type-emerges-from-state-versus-civil-society-competition/FD2C89941F15250D52076EE53F82C013 |journal=American Political Science Review |volume=117 |issue=2 |pages=407–420 |language=en |doi=10.1017/S0003055422000740 |s2cid=251607252 |issn=0003-0554|url-access=subscription }}{{Cite book |last1=Acemoglu |first1=Daron |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kTeUwgEACAAJ |title=The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty |last2=Robinson |first2=James A. |date=2019 |publisher=Penguin Books |isbn=978-0-241-31431-9 |language=en}}

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Research shows that oil wealth lowers levels of democracy and strengthens autocratic rule.{{cite journal|last1=Ross|first1=Michael L.|date=13 June 2011|title=Does Oil Hinder Democracy?|journal=World Politics|volume=53|issue=3|pages=325–361|doi=10.1353/wp.2001.0011|s2cid=18404}}{{Cite journal|last1=Wright|first1=Joseph|last2=Frantz|first2=Erica|last3=Geddes|first3=Barbara|s2cid=988090|author-link3=Barbara Geddes (academic)|date=2015-04-01|title=Oil and Autocratic Regime Survival|journal=British Journal of Political Science|volume=45|issue=2|pages=287–306|doi=10.1017/S0007123413000252|issn=1469-2112}}{{Cite journal|last1=Jensen|first1=Nathan|last2=Wantchekon|first2=Leonard|date=2004-09-01|title=Resource Wealth and Political Regimes in Africa|url=http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/politics/faculty/wantchekon/research/regimes.pdf|journal=Comparative Political Studies|volume=37|issue=7|pages=816–841|citeseerx=10.1.1.607.9710|doi=10.1177/0010414004266867|s2cid=154999593|issn=0010-4140}}{{Cite journal|last=Ulfelder|first=Jay|date=2007-08-01|title=Natural-Resource Wealth and the Survival of Autocracy|journal=Comparative Political Studies|volume=40|issue=8|pages=995–1018|doi=10.1177/0010414006287238|s2cid=154316752|issn=0010-4140}}{{Cite journal|last1=Basedau|first1=Matthias|last2=Lay|first2=Jann|date=2009-11-01|title=Resource Curse or Rentier Peace? The Ambiguous Effects of Oil Wealth and Oil Dependence on Violent Conflict|url=https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/document/36912/1/ssoar-jpeaceresearch-2009-6-basedau_et_al-Resource_curse_or_rentier_peace.pdf|journal=Journal of Peace Research|volume=46|issue=6|pages=757–776|doi=10.1177/0022343309340500|s2cid=144798465|issn=0022-3433}}{{Cite journal|last1=Andersen|first1=Jørgen J.|last2=Ross|first2=Michael L.|date=2014-06-01|title=The Big Oil Change A Closer Look at the Haber–Menaldo Analysis|url=https://brage.bibsys.no/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/195819/Andersen_CPS_2014.pdf?sequence=1|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180723095213/https://brage.bibsys.no/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/195819/Andersen_CPS_2014.pdf?sequence=1|archive-date=2018-07-23|journal=Comparative Political Studies|volume=47|issue=7|pages=993–1021|doi=10.1177/0010414013488557|issn=0010-4140|hdl=11250/195819|s2cid=154653329}}{{Cite journal|last1=Girod|first1=Desha M.|last2=Stewart|first2=Megan A.|last3=Walters|first3=Meir R.|date=2016-07-27|title=Mass protests and the resource curse: The politics of demobilization in rentier autocracies|journal=Conflict Management and Peace Science|volume=35|issue=5|pages=503–522|doi=10.1177/0738894216651826|s2cid=157573005|issn=0738-8942}}{{Cite journal|last1=Wright|first1=Joseph|last2=Frantz|first2=Erica|date=2017-07-01|title=How oil income and missing hydrocarbon rents data influence autocratic survival: A response to Lucas and Richter (2016)|journal=Research & Politics|volume=4|issue=3|pages=2053168017719794|doi=10.1177/2053168017719794|issn=2053-1680|doi-access=free}}{{Cite journal|last=Wigley|first=Simon|date=December 2018|title=Is There a Resource Curse for Private Liberties?|journal=International Studies Quarterly|volume=62|issue=4|pages=834–844|doi=10.1093/isq/sqy031|hdl=11693/48786|hdl-access=free}}{{Cite journal|last=Cassidy|first=Traviss|year=2019|title=The Long-Run Effects of Oil Wealth on Development: Evidence from Petroleum Geology|journal=The Economic Journal|volume=129|issue=623|pages=2745–2778|doi=10.1093/ej/uez009|url=https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/97778/1/MPRA_paper_97777.pdf}} According to Michael Ross, petroleum is the sole resource that has "been consistently correlated with less democracy and worse institutions" and is the "key variable in the vast majority of the studies" identifying some type of resource curse effect.{{Cite journal|last=Ross|first=Michael L.|s2cid=154308471|date=May 2015|title=What Have We Learned about the Resource Curse?|journal=Annual Review of Political Science|volume=18|pages=239–259|doi=10.1146/annurev-polisci-052213-040359|doi-access=free}} A 2014 meta-analysis confirms the negative impact of oil wealth on democratization.{{Cite journal|last=Ahmadov|first=Anar K.|date=2014-08-01|title=Oil, Democracy, and Context A Meta-Analysis|journal=Comparative Political Studies|language=en|volume=47|issue=9|pages=1238–1267|doi=10.1177/0010414013495358|s2cid=154661151|issn=0010-4140}}

Thad Dunning proposes a plausible explanation for Ecuador's return to democracy that contradicts the conventional wisdom that natural resource rents encourage authoritarian governments. Dunning proposes that there are situations where natural resource rents, such as those acquired through oil, reduce the risk of distributive or social policies to the elite because the state has other sources of revenue to finance this kind of policies that is not the elite wealth or income.Thad Dunning. 2008. Crude Democracy: Natural Resource Wealth and Political Regimes. Cambridge University Press. Ch. 1.Pp. 3. And in countries plagued with high inequality, which was the case of Ecuador in the 1970s, the result would be a higher likelihood of democratization.Thad Dunning. 2008. Crude Democracy: Natural Resource Wealth and Political Regimes. Cambridge University Press. Ch. 1, p. 21. In 1972, the military coup had overthrown the government in large part because of the fears of elites that redistribution would take place.Thad Dunning. 2008. Crude Democracy: Natural Resource Wealth and Political Regimes. Cambridge University Press. Ch. 1, p. 34. That same year oil became an increasing financial source for the country. Although the rents were used to finance the military, the eventual second oil boom of 1979 ran parallel to the country's re-democratization. Ecuador's re-democratization can then be attributed, as argued by Dunning, to the large increase of oil rents, which enabled not only a surge in public spending but placated the fears of redistribution that had grappled the elite circles. The exploitation of Ecuador's resource rent enabled the government to implement price and wage policies that benefited citizens at no cost to the elite and allowed for a smooth transition and growth of democratic institutions.

The thesis that oil and other natural resources have a negative impact on democracy has been challenged by historian Stephen Haber and political scientist Victor Menaldo in a widely cited article in the American Political Science Review (2011). Haber and Menaldo argue that "natural resource reliance is not an exogenous variable" and find that when tests of the relationship between natural resources and democracy take this point into account "increases in resource reliance are not associated with authoritarianism."Stephen Haber and Victor Menaldo, "Do Natural Resources Fuel Authoritarianism? A Reappraisal of the Resource Curse," American Political Science Review 105(1) 2011: 1–26.

It is claimed by some that certain cultures are simply more conducive to democratic values than others. This view is likely to be ethnocentric. Typically, it is Western culture which is cited as "best suited" to democracy, with other cultures portrayed as containing values which make democracy difficult or undesirable. This argument is sometimes used by undemocratic regimes to justify their failure to implement democratic reforms. Today, however, there are many non-Western democracies. Examples include India, Japan, Indonesia, Namibia, Botswana, Taiwan, and South Korea. Research finds that "Western-educated leaders significantly and substantively improve a country's democratization prospects".{{Cite journal |title = Who Democratizes? Western-educated Leaders and Regime Transitions|last1 = Gift|first1 = Thomas|last2 = Krcmaric|first2 = Daniel|year = 2015 |journal = Journal of Conflict Resolution |volume = 61|issue = 3|pages = 671–701|doi = 10.1177/0022002715590878|s2cid = 156073540}}

Huntington presented an influential, but also controversial arguments about Confucianism and Islam. Huntington held that "In practice Confucian or Confucian-influenced societies have been inhospitable to democracy."Huntington, Samuel P. "Democracy's Third Wave." Journal of Democracy 2(2)(1991): 12–34, p. 24. [https://www.ned.org/docs/Samuel-P-Huntington-Democracy-Third-Wave.pdf] He also held that "Islamic doctrine ... contains elements that may be both congenial and uncongenial to democracy," but generally thought that Islam was an obstacle to democratization.Huntington, Samuel P. "Democracy's Third Wave." Journal of Democracy 2(2)(1991): 12–34, p. 24. In contrast, Alfred Stepan was more optimistic about the compatibility of different religions and democracy.Stepan, Alfred C. "Religion, Democracy, and the "Twin Tolerations"." Journal of Democracy 11(4) 2000: 37–57.

File:Masjid al-Qiblatain.jpg

Steven Fish and Robert Barro have linked Islam to undemocratic outcomes.{{Cite journal|last=Fish|first=M. Steven|date=October 2002|title=Islam and Authoritarianism|journal=World Politics|language=en|volume=55|issue=1|pages=4–37|doi=10.1353/wp.2003.0004|s2cid=44555086|issn=1086-3338}}{{Cite journal|last=Barro|first=Robert J.|date=1999-12-01|title=Determinants of Democracy|journal=Journal of Political Economy|volume=107|issue=S6|pages=S158–S183|doi=10.1086/250107|s2cid=216077816 |issn=0022-3808|url=http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:3451297}} However, Michael Ross argues that the lack of democracies in some parts of the Muslim world has more to do with the adverse effects of the resource curse than Islam.{{Cite journal|last=Ross|first=Michael L.|date=February 2008|title=Oil, Islam, and Women|journal=American Political Science Review|language=en|volume=102|issue=1|pages=107–123|doi=10.1017/S0003055408080040|s2cid=54825180|issn=1537-5943}} Lisa Blaydes and Eric Chaney have linked the democratic divergence between the West and the Middle-East to the reliance on mamluks (slave soldiers) by Muslim rulers whereas European rulers had to rely on local elites for military forces, thus giving those elites bargaining power to push for representative government.{{Cite journal|last1=Blaydes|first1=Lisa|last2=Chaney|first2=Eric|date=2013|title=The Feudal Revolution and Europe's Rise: Political Divergence of the Christian West and the Muslim World before 1500 CE|journal=American Political Science Review|language=en|volume=107|issue=1|pages=16–34|doi=10.1017/S0003055412000561|s2cid=33455840|issn=0003-0554}}

Robert Dahl argued, in On Democracy, that countries with a "democratic political culture" were more prone for democratization and democratic survival. He also argued that cultural homogeneity and smallness contribute to democratic survival.{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/sizedemocracy0000dahl|url-access=registration|title=Size and Democracy|last1=Dahl|first1=Robert Alan|last2=Tufte|first2=Edward R.|date=1973|publisher=Stanford University Press|isbn=978-0-8047-0834-0|language=en}} Other scholars have however challenged the notion that small states and homogeneity strengthen democracy.{{Cite journal|last1=Erk|first1=Jan|last2=Veenendaal|first2=Wouter|date=2014-07-14|title=Is Small Really Beautiful?: The Microstate Mistake|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/549504|journal=Journal of Democracy|language=en|volume=25|issue=3|pages=135–148|doi=10.1353/jod.2014.0054|s2cid=155086258|issn=1086-3214|url-access=subscription}}

A 2012 study found that areas in Africa with Protestant missionaries were more likely to become stable democracies.{{Cite journal|last=Woodberry|first=Robert D.|date=2012|title=The Missionary Roots of Liberal Democracy|journal=The American Political Science Review|volume=106|issue=2|pages=244–274|doi=10.1017/S0003055412000093|jstor=41495078|s2cid=54677100|issn=0003-0554}} A 2020 study failed to replicate those findings.{{Cite journal|last1=Nikolova|first1=Elena|last2=Polansky|first2=Jakub|date=2020|title=Conversionary Protestants Do Not Cause Democracy|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-political-science/article/abs/conversionary-protestants-do-not-cause-democracy/89D4552E3CEED18F62E94E4ABEF322F6|journal=British Journal of Political Science|volume=51|issue=4|language=en|pages=1723–1733|doi=10.1017/S0007123420000174|hdl=10419/214629 |s2cid=234540943|issn=0007-1234|hdl-access=free}}

Sirianne Dahlum and Carl Henrik Knutsen offer a test of the Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel revised version of modernization theory, which focuses on cultural traits triggered by economic development that are presumed to be conducive to democratization.Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2005; Dahlum, S., & Knutsen, C., "Democracy by Demand? Reinvestigating the Effect of Self-expression Values on Political Regime Type." British Journal of Political Science 47(2)(2017): 437–61. They find "no empirical support" for the Inglehart and Welzel thesis and conclude that "self-expression values do not enhance democracy levels or democratization chances, and neither do they stabilize existing democracies."Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2005; Dahlum, S., & Knutsen, C., "Democracy by Demand? Reinvestigating the Effect of Self-expression Values on Political Regime Type." British Journal of Political Science 47(2)(2017): 437–61, p 437

It has long been theorized that education promotes stable and democratic societies.{{Cite book|title = Capitalism and Freedom|last = Friedman|first = Milton|year = 1962|pages = 86}} Research shows that education leads to greater political tolerance, increases the likelihood of political participation and reduces inequality.{{Cite journal|title = The democratizing effect of education |journal = Research & Politics|date = 2015-10-01|issn = 2053-1680|pages = 2053168015613360|volume = 2|issue = 4|doi = 10.1177/2053168015613360|language = en|first1 = Eduardo|last1 = Alemán|first2 = Yeaji|last2 = Kim|doi-access = free}} One study finds "that increases in levels of education improve levels of democracy and that the democratizing effect of education is more intense in poor countries".

It is commonly claimed that democracy and democratization were important drivers of the expansion of primary education around the world. However, new evidence from historical education trends challenges this assertion. An analysis of historical student enrollment rates for 109 countries from 1820 to 2010 finds no support for the claim that democratization increased access to primary education around the world. It is true that transitions to democracy often coincided with an acceleration in the expansion of primary education, but the same acceleration was observed in countries that remained non-democratic.{{Cite journal|last=Paglayan|first=Agustina S.|date=February 2021|title=The Non-Democratic Roots of Mass Education: Evidence from 200 Years|journal=American Political Science Review|language=en|volume=115|issue=1|pages=179–198|doi=10.1017/S0003055420000647|issn=0003-0554|doi-access=free}}

Wider adoption of voting advice applications can lead to increased education on politics and increased voter turnout.{{cite journal | url=https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2018.1526237 | doi=10.1080/10584609.2018.1526237 | title=Getting Out the Vote with Voting Advice Applications | year=2019 | last1=Germann | first1=Micha | last2=Gemenis | first2=Kostas | journal=Political Communication | volume=36 | pages=149–170 | hdl=20.500.14279/30071 | s2cid=149640396 | hdl-access=free }}

File:CI boardwalk Sandy sweepers jeh.jpg, including volunteering, is conducive to democratization. These volunteers are cleaning up after the 2012 Hurricane Sandy.]]

Civil society refers to a collection of non-governmental organizations and institutions that advance the interests, priorities and will of citizens. Social capital refers to features of social life—networks, norms, and trust—that allow individuals to act together to pursue shared objectives.

Robert Putnam argues that certain characteristics make societies more likely to have cultures of civic engagement that lead to more participatory democracies. According to Putnam, communities with denser horizontal networks of civic association are able to better build the "norms of trust, reciprocity, and civic engagement" that lead to democratization and well-functioning participatory democracies. By contrasting communities in Northern Italy, which had dense horizontal networks, to communities in Southern Italy, which had more vertical networks and patron-client relations, Putnam asserts that the latter never built the culture of civic engagement that some deem as necessary for successful democratization.{{Cite journal|last=Putnam|first=Robert|date=March 1993|title=What makes democracy work?|journal=National Civic Review|volume=82|issue=2|pages=101–107|doi=10.1002/ncr.4100820204}}

Sheri Berman has rebutted Putnam's theory that civil society contributes to democratization, writing that in the case of the Weimar Republic, civil society facilitated the rise of the Nazi Party.{{Cite journal|last=Berman|first=Sheri|author-link=Sheri Berman|date=1997|title=Civil Society and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic|journal=World Politics|language=en|volume=49|issue=3|pages=401–429|doi=10.1353/wp.1997.0008|s2cid=145285276|issn=1086-3338}} According to Berman, Germany's democratization after World War I allowed for a renewed development in the country's civil society; however, Berman argues that this vibrant civil society eventually weakened democracy within Germany as it exacerbated existing social divisions due to the creation of exclusionary community organizations. Subsequent empirical research and theoretical analysis has lent support for Berman's argument.{{Cite journal|last1=Satyanath|first1=Shanker|last2=Voigtländer|first2=Nico|last3=Voth|first3=Hans-Joachim|date=2017-04-01|title=Bowling for Fascism: Social Capital and the Rise of the Nazi Party|journal=Journal of Political Economy|volume=125|issue=2|pages=478–526|doi=10.1086/690949|s2cid=3827369|issn=0022-3808|url=http://www.nber.org/papers/w19201.pdf}} Yale University political scientist Daniel Mattingly argues civil society in China helps the authoritarian regime in China to cement control.{{Cite book|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/art-of-political-control-in-china/4FE177A409064E67DBB3D5A08081F80A|title=The Art of Political Control in China|last=Mattingly|first=Daniel C.|date=2019|publisher=Cambridge University Press|language=en|doi=10.1017/9781108662536|isbn=9781108662536|s2cid=213618572|access-date=2020-02-06}} Clark, M. Golder, and S. Golder also argue that despite many believing democratization requires a civic culture, empirical evidence produced by several reanalyses of past studies suggest this claim is only partially supported. Philippe C. Schmitter also asserts that the existence of civil society is not a prerequisite for the transition to democracy, but rather democratization is usually followed by the resurrection of civil society (even if it did not exist previously).

Research indicates that democracy protests are associated with democratization. According to a study by Freedom House, in 67 countries where dictatorships have fallen since 1972, nonviolent civic resistance was a strong influence over 70 percent of the time. In these transitions, changes were catalyzed not through foreign invasion, and only rarely through armed revolt or voluntary elite-driven reforms, but overwhelmingly by democratic civil society organizations utilizing nonviolent action and other forms of civil resistance, such as strikes, boycotts, civil disobedience, and mass protests.{{Cite web |url=http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=70&release=275 |title=Study: Nonviolent Civic Resistance Key Factor in Building Durable Democracies, May 24, 2005 |access-date=June 18, 2009 |archive-date=December 23, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111223135218/http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=70&release=275 }} A 2016 study found that about a quarter of all cases of democracy protests between 1989 and 2011 lead to democratization.{{cite book|last=Brancati|first=Dawn|title=Democracy Protests: Origins, Features and Significance|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2016|location=Cambridge}}

Scholars such as Dankwart A. Rustow,{{Cite journal|last=Rustow|first=Dankwart A.|date=1970|title=Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model|journal=Comparative Politics|volume=2|issue=3|pages=337–363|doi=10.2307/421307|issn=0010-4159|jstor=421307|url=http://revistas.usal.es/index.php/1130-2887/article/view/alh201468139168}}{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/transitionstodem0000unse|title=Transitions to Democracy|date=1999|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=978-0-231-50247-4|editor-last=Anderson|editor-first=Lisa|url-access=registration}} and Guillermo O'Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter in their classic Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (1986),{{Cite book|url=https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/transitions-authoritarian-rule-2|title=Transitions from Authoritarian Rule |date=September 1986 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|doi=10.56021/9780801831904 |isbn=9780801831904 |access-date=2019-12-23 |last1=O'Donnell |first1=Guillermo }} argued against the notion that there are structural "big" causes of democratization. These scholars instead emphasize how the democratization process occurs in a more contingent manner that depends on the characteristics and circumstances of the elites who ultimately oversee the shift from authoritarianism to democracy.

O'Donnell and Schmitter proposed a strategic choice approach to transitions to democracy that highlighted how they were driven by the decisions of different actors in response to a core set of dilemmas. The analysis centered on the interaction among four actors: the hard-liners and soft-liners who belonged to the incumbent authoritarian regime, and the moderate and radical oppositions against the regime. This book not only became the point of reference for a burgeoning academic literature on democratic transitions, it was also read widely by political activists engaged in actual struggles to achieve democracy.Gerardo L. Munck, "Democratic Theory After Transitions From Authoritarian Rule," Perspectives on Politics Vol. 9, Nº 2 (2011): 333–43.

Adam Przeworski, in Democracy and the Market (1991), offered the first analysis of the interaction between rulers and opposition in transitions to democracy using rudimentary game theory. and he emphasizes the interdependence of political and economic transformations.Adam Przeworski, Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, Ch. 2.

Scholars have argued that processes of democratization may be elite-driven or driven by the authoritarian incumbents as a way for those elites to retain power amid popular demands for representative government.{{Cite book|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/authoritarianism-and-the-elite-origins-of-democracy/29C0246C5474CBC5184B2967AD4206ED|title=Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy|last1=Albertus|first1=Michael|last2=Menaldo|first2=Victor|date=2018|publisher=Cambridge University Press|doi=10.1017/9781108185950 |isbn=9781108185950 |language=en}}{{Cite journal|last1=Konieczny|first1=Piotr|last2=Markoff|first2=John|date=2015|title=Poland's Contentious Elites Enter the Age of Revolution: Extending Social Movement Concepts|url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/socf.12163|journal=Sociological Forum|language=en|volume=30|issue=2|pages=286–304|doi=10.1111/socf.12163|issn=1573-7861}}{{Cite journal|last=Kavasoglu|first=Berker|date=2021-01-05|title=Autocratic ruling parties during regime transitions: Investigating the democratizing effect of strong ruling parties|journal=Party Politics|volume=28 |issue=2 |language=en|pages=377–388|doi=10.1177/1354068820985280|issn=1354-0688|doi-access=free|hdl=2077/64598|hdl-access=free}}{{Cite book|last1=Slater|first1=Dan|url=https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691167602/from-development-to-democracy|title=From Development to Democracy|last2=Wong|first2=Joseph|date=2022|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-16760-2|language=en}} If the costs of repression are higher than the costs of giving away power, authoritarians may opt for democratization and inclusive institutions.{{Citation|last1=Acemoglu|first1=Daron|title=Democracy, Redistribution, and Inequality|date=2015|work=Handbook of Income Distribution|volume=2|pages=1885–1966|publisher=Elsevier|language=en|doi=10.1016/b978-0-444-59429-7.00022-4|isbn=978-0-444-59430-3|last2=Naidu|first2=Suresh|last3=Restrepo|first3=Pascual|last4=Robinson|first4=James A.|url=http://www.nber.org/papers/w19746.pdf}}{{Cite journal|last1=Boix|first1=Carles|last2=Stokes|first2=Susan C.|date=2003|title=Endogenous Democratization|journal=World Politics|language=en|volume=55|issue=4|pages=517–549|doi=10.1353/wp.2003.0019|s2cid=18745191|issn=0043-8871}}{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=Michael K.|url=https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691217000/shock-to-the-system|title=Shock to the System|publisher=Princeton University Press|year=2021|isbn=978-0-691-21700-0|language=en}} According to a 2020 study, authoritarian-led democratization is more likely to lead to lasting democracy in cases when the party strength of the authoritarian incumbent is high.{{Cite journal|last1=Riedl|first1=Rachel Beatty|last2=Slater|first2=Dan|last3=Wong|first3=Joseph|last4=Ziblatt|first4=Daniel|date=2020-03-04|title=Authoritarian-Led Democratization|journal=Annual Review of Political Science|volume=23|pages=315–332|doi=10.1146/annurev-polisci-052318-025732|issn=1094-2939|doi-access=free}} However, Michael Albertus and Victor Menaldo argue that democratizing rules implemented by outgoing authoritarians may distort democracy in favor of the outgoing authoritarian regime and its supporters, resulting in "bad" institutions that are hard to get rid of.{{Cite book |chapter=The Stickiness of "Bad" Institutions: Constitutional Continuity and Change under Democracy |chapter-url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/politics-of-institutional-weakness-in-latin-america/stickiness-of-bad-institutions/335EE2ABF4CF956FEF8059B628DB96F0 |last1=Albertus |first1=Michael |last2=Menaldo|first2=Victor |date=2020 |title=The Politics of Institutional Weakness in Latin America |editor=Daniel M. Brinks |editor2=Steven Levitsky |editor3=María Victoria Murillo |language=en|doi=10.1017/9781108776608.003 |publisher=Cambridge University Press|pages=61–97|isbn=9781108776608|s2cid=219476337}} According to Michael K. Miller, elite-driven democratization is particularly likely in the wake of major violent shocks (either domestic or international) which provide openings to opposition actors to the authoritarian regime. Dan Slater and Joseph Wong argue that dictators in Asia chose to implement democratic reforms when they were in positions of strength in order to retain and revitalize their power.

According to a study by political scientist Daniel Treisman, influential theories of democratization posit that autocrats "deliberately choose to share or surrender power. They do so to prevent revolution, motivate citizens to fight wars, incentivize governments to provide public goods, outbid elite rivals, or limit factional violence." His study shows that in many cases, "democratization occurred not because incumbent elites chose it but because, in trying to prevent it, they made mistakes that weakened their hold on power. Common mistakes include: calling elections or starting military conflicts, only to lose them; ignoring popular unrest and being overthrown; initiating limited reforms that get out of hand; and selecting a covert democrat as leader. These mistakes reflect well-known cognitive biases such as overconfidence and the illusion of control."{{Cite journal|author1-link=Daniel Treisman|last=Treisman|first=Daniel|date=October 2017|title=Democracy by mistake|journal=NBER Working Paper No. 23944|doi=10.3386/w23944|doi-access=free}}

Sharun Mukand and Dani Rodrik dispute that elite-driven democratization produce liberal democracy. They argue that low levels of inequality and weak identity cleavages are necessary for liberal democracy to emerge.{{Cite journal|last1=Mukand|first1=Sharun W.|last2=Rodrik|first2=Dani|title=The Political Economy of Liberal Democracy|journal=The Economic Journal|year=2020|volume=130|issue=627|pages=765–792|language=en|doi=10.1093/ej/ueaa004|doi-access=free|hdl=10419/161872|hdl-access=free}} A 2020 study by several political scientists from German universities found that democratization through bottom-up peaceful protests led to higher levels of democracy and democratic stability than democratization prompted by elites.{{Cite book|last1=Lambach|first1=Daniel|url=https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030393700|title=Nonviolent Resistance and Democratic Consolidation|last2=Bayer|first2=Markus|last3=Bethke|first3=Felix S.|last4=Dressler|first4=Matteo|last5=Dudouet|first5=Véronique|date=2020|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=978-3-030-39370-0|language=en}}

The three dictatorship types, monarchy, civilian and military have different approaches to democratization as a result of their individual goals. Monarchic and civilian dictatorships seek to remain in power indefinitely through hereditary rule in the case of monarchs or through oppression in the case of civilian dictators. A military dictatorship seizes power to act as a caretaker government to replace what they consider a flawed civilian government. Military dictatorships are more likely to transition to democracy because at the onset, they are meant to be stop-gap solutions while a new acceptable government forms.{{Cite journal|title = Living by the Sword and Dying by the Sword? Leadership Transitions in and out of Dictatorships |journal = International Studies Quarterly|volume = 60|date = 2016-02-18|issn = 0020-8833|pages = 73–84|doi = 10.1093/isq/sqv014|language = en|first = Alexandre|last = Debs|s2cid = 8989565}}{{cite journal|last1=Cheibub|first1=Jose Antonio|last2=Gandhi|first2=Jennifer|last3=Vreeland|first3=James|title=Democracy and Dictatorship Revisited|journal=Public Choice|volume=143|issue=1–2|pages=67–101|date=2010|doi=10.1007/s11127-009-9491-2|s2cid=45234838}}{{cite book|last1=Smith|first1=Peter|title=Democracy in Latin America|date=2005|publisher=Oxford University Press}}

Research suggests that the threat of civil conflict encourages regimes to make democratic concessions. A 2016 study found that drought-induced riots in Sub-Saharan Africa lead regimes, fearing conflict, to make democratic concessions.{{Cite journal|last1=Aidt|first1=Toke S.|last2=Leon|first2=Gabriel|date=2016-06-01|title=The Democratic Window of Opportunity Evidence from Riots in Sub-Saharan Africa|url=https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/the-democratic-window-of-opportunity(04b0939e-ac4a-46b2-9472-c2274409c003).html|journal=Journal of Conflict Resolution|language=en|volume=60|issue=4|pages=694–717|doi=10.1177/0022002714564014|issn=0022-0027|s2cid=29658309}}

Mancur Olson theorizes that the process of democratization occurs when elites are unable to reconstitute an autocracy. Olson suggests that this occurs when constituencies or identity groups are mixed within a geographic region. He asserts that this mixed geographic constituencies requires elites to for democratic and representative institutions to control the region, and to limit the power of competing elite groups.{{Cite journal|last=Olson|first=Mancur|date=1993|title=Dictatorship, Democracy and Development|url=http://revistas.up.edu.pe/index.php/apuntes/article/view/342|journal=American Political Science Review|volume=87 |issue=3 |pages=567–576 |doi=10.2307/2938736 |jstor=2938736|s2cid=145312307 |url-access=subscription}}

One analysis found that "Compared with other forms of leadership turnover in autocracies—such as coups, elections, or term limits—which lead to regime collapse about half of the time, the death of a dictator is remarkably inconsequential. ... of the 79 dictators who have died in office (1946–2014)... in the vast majority (92%) of cases, the regime persists after the autocrat's death."{{Cite magazine |author=Andrea Kendall-Taylor |author2=Erica Frantz |url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/09/10/when-dictators-die/ |url-access=subscription |title=When Dictators Die |magazine=Foreign Policy |date=September 10, 2015}}

One of the critiques of Huntington's periodization is that it doesn't give enough weight to universal suffrage.Renske Doorenspleet, "Reassessing the Three Waves of Democratization." World Politics 52(3) 2000: 384–406, p. 385.Georgina Waylen, Engendering Transitions: Women's Mobilization, Institutions and Gender Outcomes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Pamela Paxton argues that once women's suffrage is taken into account, the data reveal "a long, continuous democratization period from 1893–1958, with only war-related reversals."Paxton, P. "Women's suffrage in the measurement of democracy: Problems of operationalization." Studies in Comparative International Development35(3): 2000: 92–111, p. 102.[https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/BF02699767.pdf]

Jeffrey Herbst, in his paper "War and the State in Africa" (1990), explains how democratization in European states was achieved through political development fostered by war-making and these "lessons from the case of Europe show that war is an important cause of state formation that is missing in Africa today."Herbst, Jeffrey. "War and the State in Africa." International Security (1990): 117–139. Herbst writes that war and the threat of invasion by neighbors caused European state to more efficiently collect revenue, forced leaders to improve administrative capabilities, and fostered state unification and a sense of national identity (a common, powerful association between the state and its citizens). Herbst writes that in Africa and elsewhere in the non-European world "states are developing in a fundamentally new environment" because they mostly "gained Independence without having to resort to combat and have not faced a security threat since independence." Herbst notes that the strongest non-European states, South Korea and Taiwan, are "largely 'warfare' states that have been molded, in part, by the near constant threat of external aggression."

Elizabeth Kier has challenged claims that total war prompts democratization, showing in the cases of the UK and Italy during World War I that the policies adopted by the Italian government during World War I prompted a fascist backlash whereas UK government policies towards labor undermined broader democratization.{{Cite book|last=Kier|first=Elizabeth|title=War and Democracy: Labor and the Politics of Peace|date=2021|publisher=Cornell University Press|isbn=978-1-5017-5640-5|jstor=10.7591/j.ctv16pn3kw}}

{{main|Territorial peace theory}}

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Wars may contribute to the state-building that precedes a transition to democracy, but war is mainly a serious obstacle to democratization. While adherents of the democratic peace theory believe that democracy causes peace, the territorial peace theory makes the opposite claim that peace causes democracy. In fact, war and territorial threats to a country are likely to increase authoritarianism and lead to autocracy.

This is supported by historical evidence showing that in almost all cases, peace has come before democracy. A number of scholars have argued that there is little support for the hypothesis that democracy causes peace, but strong evidence for the opposite hypothesis that peace leads to democracy.{{cite journal |last1=Gibler |first1=Douglas M. |last2=Owsiak |first2=Andrew |title=Democracy and the Settlement of International Borders, 1919–2001 |journal=Journal of Conflict Resolution |volume=62 |issue=9 |pages=1847–1875 |date=2017 |doi=10.1177/0022002717708599|s2cid=158036471 }}{{cite book |last1=Gat |first1=Azar |title=The Causes of War and the Spread of Peace: Will War Rebound? |date=2017 |publisher=Oxford University Press}}{{cite journal |last1=Ray |first1=James Lee |title=Does Democracy Cause Peace? |journal=Annual Review of Political Science |date=1998 |volume=1 |pages=27–46 |doi=10.1146/annurev.polisci.1.1.27}}

Christian Welzel's human empowerment theory posits that existential security leads to emancipative cultural values and support for a democratic political organization.{{cite book |last1=Welzel |first1=Christian |title=Freedom Rising: Human Empowerment and the Quest for Emancipation |date=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press}} This is in agreement with theories based on evolutionary psychology. The so-called regality theory finds that people develop a psychological preference for a strong leader and an authoritarian form of government in situations of war or perceived collective danger. On the other hand, people will support egalitarian values and a preference for democracy in situations of peace and safety. The consequence of this is that a society will develop in the direction of autocracy and an authoritarian government when people perceive collective danger, while the development in the democratic direction requires collective safety.{{cite book |last1=Fog |first1=Agner |date=2017 |title=Warlike and Peaceful Societies: The Interaction of Genes and Culture |publisher=Open Book Publishers |doi=10.11647/OBP.0128 |isbn=978-1-78374-403-9 |doi-access=free }}

A number of studies have found that international institutions have helped facilitate democratization.{{Cite journal|last=Pevehouse|first=Jon C.|date=2002|title=Democracy from the Outside-In? International Organizations and Democratization|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/abs/democracy-from-the-outsidein-international-organizations-and-democratization/E3F63B3207C1282FA3A8146F2D792DFB|journal=International Organization|language=en|volume=56|issue=3|pages=515–549|doi=10.1162/002081802760199872|s2cid=154702046|issn=1531-5088|url-access=subscription}}{{Cite journal|last1=Mansfield|first1=Edward D.|last2=Pevehouse|first2=Jon C.|date=2006|title=Democratization and International Organizations|journal=International Organization|language=en|volume=60|issue=1|pages=137–167|doi=10.1017/S002081830606005X|doi-broken-date=2024-11-15 |issn=1531-5088|doi-access=free}}{{Cite book|last=Hafner-Burton|first=Emilie M.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BjrQ6YQC6d8C|title=Forced to Be Good: Why Trade Agreements Boost Human Rights|date=2011|publisher=Cornell University Press|isbn=978-0-8014-5746-3|language=en}} Thomas Risse wrote in 2009, "there is a consensus in the literature on Eastern Europe that the EU membership perspective had a huge anchoring effects for the new democracies."{{Cite book|last=Risse|first=Thomas|url=https://archive.org/details/promotingdemocra00mage|title=Promoting Democracy and the Rule of Law: American and European Strategies |date=2009 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK|isbn=978-0-230-24452-8|editor-last=Magen|editor-first=Amichai|series=Governance and Limited Statehood Series|pages=[https://archive.org/details/promotingdemocra00mage/page/n262 244]–271|chapter=Conclusions: Towards Transatlantic Democracy Promotion? |doi=10.1057/9780230244528_9|editor2-last=Risse|editor2-first=Thomas|editor3-last=McFaul|editor3-first=Michael A.|url-access=limited}} Scholars have also linked NATO expansion with playing a role in democratization.{{Cite journal|last1=Poast|first1=Paul|last2=Chinchilla|first2=Alexandra|date=2020|title=Good for democracy? Evidence from the 2004 NATO expansion|journal=International Politics|volume=57|issue=3|pages=471–490|doi=10.1057/s41311-020-00236-6|issn=1740-3898|s2cid=219012478}} international forces can significantly affect democratization. Global forces like the diffusion of democratic ideas and pressure from international financial institutions to democratize have led to democratization.{{cite book |last1=Geddes |first1=Barbara |title=The Oxford Handbook of Political Science |chapter=What Causes Democratization |date=7 July 2011 |pages=593–615 |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199604456.013.0029|isbn=978-0-19-960445-6 }}

{{main|Democracy promotion}}

The European Union has contributed to the spread of democracy, in particular by encouraging democratic reforms in aspiring member states. Thomas Risse wrote in 2009, "there is a consensus in the literature on Eastern Europe that the EU membership perspective had a huge anchoring effects for the new democracies."

Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way have argued that close ties to the West increased the likelihood of democratization after the end of the Cold War, whereas states with weak ties to the West adopted competitive authoritarian regimes.{{Cite journal|last1=Levitsky|first1=Steven|last2=Way|first2=Lucan|date=2005-07-27|title=International Linkage and Democratization|journal=Journal of Democracy|language=en|volume=16|issue=3|pages=20–34|doi=10.1353/jod.2005.0048|s2cid=154397302|issn=1086-3214}}{{Cite book|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/competitive-authoritarianism/20A51BE2EBAB59B8AAEFD91B8FA3C9D6|title=Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War|last1=Levitsky|first1=Steven|last2=Way|first2=Lucan A.|date=2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|doi=10.1017/CBO9780511781353|isbn=9780511781353}}

A 2002 study found that membership in regional organizations "is correlated with transitions to democracy during the period from 1950 to 1992."{{Cite journal|last=Pevehouse|first=Jon C.|date=2002-06-01|title=Democracy from the Outside-In? International Organizations and Democratization|journal=International Organization|volume=56|issue=3|pages=515–549|doi=10.1162/002081802760199872|s2cid=154702046|issn=1531-5088}}

A 2004 study found no evidence that foreign aid led to democratization.{{Cite journal|last=Knack|first=Stephen|date=2004-03-01|title=Does Foreign Aid Promote Democracy?|journal=International Studies Quarterly|language=en|volume=48|issue=1|pages=251–266|doi=10.1111/j.0020-8833.2004.00299.x|issn=0020-8833|doi-access=free}}

Democracies have often been imposed by military intervention, for example in Japan and Germany after World War II.{{cite journal|last=Therborn|first=Göran|author-link=Göran Therborn|date=May–June 1977 |title=The rule of capital and the rise of democracy |url=https://newleftreview.org/issues/i103/articles/goran-therborn-the-rule-of-capital-and-the-rise-of-democracy |url-access=subscription |journal=New Left Review |number=103 |pages=3–41}}[http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?issueID=47&articleID=599 The Independent] In other cases, decolonization sometimes facilitated the establishment of democracies that were soon replaced by authoritarian regimes. For example, Syria, after gaining independence from French mandatory control at the beginning of the Cold War, failed to consolidate its democracy, so it eventually collapsed and was replaced by a Ba'athist dictatorship.{{Cite journal|last1=Krokowska|first1=Katarzyna|year=2011|title=The Fall of Democracy in Syria|url=http://sam.gov.tr/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/katarzyna_krokowska.pdf|journal=Perceptions|access-date=2016-02-13|archive-date=2017-03-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170312042938/http://sam.gov.tr/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/katarzyna_krokowska.pdf}}

Robert Dahl argued in On Democracy that foreign interventions contributed to democratic failures, citing Soviet interventions in Central and Eastern Europe and U.S. interventions in Latin America. However, the delegitimization of empires contributed to the emergence of democracy as former colonies gained independence and implemented democracy.

Some scholars link the emergence and sustenance of democracies to areas with access to the sea, which tends to increase the mobility of people, goods, capital, and ideas.{{Cite book |last1=Gerring |first1=John |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/deep-roots-of-modern-democracy/6AA764716C8F6BC7FF8A64F6CA2DA565 |title=The Deep Roots of Modern Democracy: Geography and the Diffusion of Political Institutions |last2=Apfeld |first2=Brendan |last3=Wig |first3=Tore |last4=Tollefsen |first4=Andreas Forø |date=2022 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-009-10037-3 |doi=10.1017/9781009115223|s2cid=252021781 }}{{Cite book |last=Deudney |first=Daniel H. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NalIdFN65e8C |title=Bounding Power: Republican Security Theory from the Polis to the Global Village |date=2007 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1-4008-3727-4 |language=en}}

In seeking to explain why North America developed stable democracies and Latin America did not, Seymour Martin Lipset, in The Democratic Century (2004), holds that the reason is that the initial patterns of colonization, the subsequent process of economic incorporation of the new colonies, and the wars of independence differ. The divergent histories of Britain and Iberia are seen as creating different cultural legacies that affected the prospects of democracy.Seymour Martin Lipset and Jason Lakin, The Democratic Century. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004, Part II. A related argument is presented by James A. Robinson in "Critical Junctures and Developmental Paths" (2022).James A. Robinson, "Critical Junctures and Developmental Paths: Colonialism and Long-Term Economic Prosperity," Ch. 2, in David Collier and Gerardo L. Munck (eds.), Critical Junctures and Historical Legacies: Insights and Methods for Comparative Social Science. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2022.

Scholars have discussed whether the order in which things happen helps or hinders the process of democratization. An early discussion occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. Dankwart Rustow argued that "'the most effective sequence' is the pursuit of national unity, government authority, and political equality, in that order."Samuel P. Huntington, "The Goals of Development," pp. 3–32, in Myron Weiner and Samuel Huntington (eds.), Understanding Political Development. Boston: Little Brown, 1987, p. 19. Eric Nordlinger and Samuel Huntington stressed "the importance of developing effective governmental institutions before the emergence of mass participation in politics." Robert Dahl, in Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (1971), held that the "commonest sequence among the older and more stable polyarchies has been some approximation of the ... path [in which] competitive politics preceded expansion in participation."Dahl, Robert A. (1971). Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition. New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 36.

In the 2010s, the discussion focused on the impact of the sequencing between state building and democratization. Francis Fukuyama, in Political Order and Political Decay (2014), echoes Huntington's "state-first" argument and holds that those "countries in which democracy preceded modern state-building have had much greater problems achieving high-quality governance."Fukuyama, Francis. Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalisation of Democracy. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2014, p 30. This view has been supported by Sheri Berman, who offers a sweeping overview of European history and concludes that "sequencing matters" and that "without strong states...liberal democracy is difficult if not impossible to achieve."

Berman, Sheri, Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019, p. 394.

However, this state-first thesis has been challenged. Relying on a comparison of Denmark and Greece, and quantitative research on 180 countries across 1789–2019, Haakon Gjerløw, Carl Henrik Knutsen, Tore Wig, and Matthew C. Wilson, in One Road to Riches? (2022), "find little evidence to support the stateness-first argument."Gjerløw, H., Knutsen, C., Wig, T., & Wilson, M. (2022). One Road to Riches?: How State Building and Democratization Affect Economic Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. i. Based on a comparison of European and Latin American countries, Sebastián Mazzuca and Gerardo Munck, in A Middle-Quality Institutional Trap (2021), argue that counter to the state-first thesis, the "starting point of political developments is less important than whether the State–democracy relationship is a virtuous cycle, triggering causal mechanisms that reinforce each."Sebastián Mazzuca and Gerardo Munck (2021). A Middle-Quality Institutional Trap: Democracy and State Capacity in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. i.

In sequences of democratization for many countries, Morrison et al. found elections as the most frequent first element of the sequence of democratization but found this ordering does not necessarily predict successful democratization.[http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4494230 Morrison, Kelly and Lundstedt, Martin and Sato, Yuko and Boese, Vanessa A. and Markström, Klas and Lindberg, Staffan I., Chains in Episodes of Democratization (June 28, 2023). V-Dem Working Paper No. 2023:141]

The democratic peace theory claims that democracy causes peace, while the territorial peace theory claims that peace causes democracy.{{cite book |last1=Gibler |first1=Douglas M. |last2=Miller |first2=Steven V. |editor1-last=McLaughlin |editor1-first=Sara |editor2-last=Vasquez |editor2-first=John A. |title=What do we know about War? |date=2021 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |pages=158–170 |edition=3 |chapter=The Territorial Peace: Current and Future Research}}

{{notelist}}

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{{Wiktionary|democratization}}

{{Wikiquote|democratization}}

{{Commons category|Democratization|lcfirst=yes}}

• [http://www.idea.int International IDEA] (International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance)
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