POL 3114 Chapter Notes -Statism, Alexis De Tocqueville, Well-Order
6 Jul 2014
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
There have been a number of failed prodemocracy movements in china, thailand, and burma, but even these cases reveal a link between development and democracy. In the chinese and thai cases, in particular, the leaders of the prodemocracy movements tended to be relatively well educated, middle-class, and cosmopolitan citizens--the type of individual that began to emerge during earlier periods of rapid economic growth. The relationship between economic modernization and democracy is therefore indirect: economic modernization raises living and educational standards and liberates people from a certain kind of fear brought on by life close to the subsistence level. This permits people to pursue a broader range of goals, including those that remained latent in earlier stages of economic development. Among those latent urges is the desire to be recognized as an adult with a certain basic human dignity--a recognition that is achieved through participation in the political system.
