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flowchart LR
A["Economic<br/>Growth"] --> B["Urbanization"]
B --> C["Education"]
C --> D["Middle<br/>Class"]
D --> E["Political<br/>Demands"]
E --> F["Democracy"]
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Comparative Politics
Lecture 5: Democratization
Bogdan G. Popescu 
John Cabot University
Two Paths from the Same Starting Point
Figure 1: Approximate values from World Bank and Maddison Project.
Lipset’s Hypothesis
Lipset (1959): economic development produces democracy.
“The more well-to-do a nation, the greater the chances that it will sustain democracy.” — Lipset (1959, p. 75)
The logic is structural:
- Urbanization concentrates citizens
- Education raises political awareness
- A middle class demands participation
- Wealth reduces zero-sum conflict
Source: Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
The Cross-Sectional Evidence
Figure 2: Approximate values from World Bank (2022) and V-Dem v13.
The Survival Finding
Figure 3: Adapted from Przeworski et al. (2000).
The Model in History: Britain 1832
The Great Reform Act (1832) as A&R’s model in action:
- Swing Riots (1830–31): rural unrest threatened elite property
- Whig calculation: partial franchise cheaper than repression
- Result: middle class enfranchised; working class excluded
The reform was precisely calibrated: enough democracy to defuse the threat, not enough to lose control.
Source: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Are A&R’s Parameters Really Exogenous?
A&R take education and inequality as given. But what if they are endogenous to prior institutional regimes?
- At the Ottoman–Habsburg frontier: same country, same formal institutions
- Habsburg side → higher historical literacy; Ottoman side → lower
- Regression discontinuity at the border → persistent educational gaps that subsequent regimes struggled to close (Popescu)
Source: Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
Are A&R’s Parameters Really Exogenous?
A&R take education and inequality as given. But what if they are endogenous to prior institutional regimes?
- At the Ottoman–Habsburg frontier: same country, same formal institutions
- Habsburg side → higher historical literacy; Ottoman side → lower
- The model’s “background parameters” have deep historical roots — and those roots shape where the A&R mechanism can operate.
Source: Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
Executive Aggrandizement
Bermeo (2016): modern reversals don’t look like classic coups.
- Elected leaders dismantle democracy from within
- Judiciary captured, media controlled, opposition harassed
- All done through legal or quasi-legal channels
Examples: Hungary (Orbán), Turkey (Erdoğan), Venezuela (Chávez/Maduro)
No tanks. No coups. Just incremental erosion through the institutions themselves.
Source: Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA 4.0.
Democratization in Waves
Figure 4: Approximate values from V-Dem, Polity, and Huntington (1991).
South Korea vs. Singapore Revisited
What the A&R model explains:
- South Korea: labor-intensive industry → organized workers → credible threat → democratization
- Singapore: state-managed economy → no independent labor → no credible threat → autocracy survives
Source: Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
South Korea vs. Singapore Revisited
What the model cannot fully explain:
- The specific timing of the 1987 transition
- The role of the student movement
- Why Singapore’s elite was so effective at co-optation
Source: Wikimedia Commons, public domain.