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Some Conditions of Democracy*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Deane E. Neubauer
Deane E. Neubauer*
Affiliation:
University of California, Irvine
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Extract

It has been argued that political democracy in nation-states is dependent upon certain levels of social and economic development. Some authors (Lipset and Cutright) argue that a particular complex of social and economic requisites appears necessary for the institutionalization and maintenance of democracy. Others (Lerner and Pye) suggest that national political development of any form is predicated upon the development of a system of communications sufficiently sophisticated to overcome the parochialism of traditional society. Still others (Almond and Verba) find social factors such as education crucial for the development of those attitudes deemed adequate for active citizens of democratic polities.

By definition, political democracy in nationstates requires some minimal level of citizen participation in decision making. Historically the most effective method of institutionalizing such participation is through some form of representative government. This mechanism permits groups of citizens with common preferences to support representatives who will, in turn, attempt to schedule those preferences for decision by the government. Groups of representatives will form coalitions in an attempt to insure that their common preferences will be enacted into public policy. Because preferences in society are likely to vary in direction and intensity, the successful implementation of political democracy imposes two requirements. One, communication of preferences among competing groups, must be widespread. If they are not, it will be difficult for groups with shared preferences to combine their resources such that “majority” preferences can be successfully implemented. Indeed at a more basic level, communication is necessary for the identification and articulation of common preferences. Second, groups within the citizenry holding competing preferences must be socialized into the procedural norms of the system. Most important is the acceptance of the norms of compliance so that groups which “lose” on any given issue (enactment of a preference set) do not withdraw from the decision system or opt to overthrow it. In short, two primary conditions for the maintenance of any system of political democracy are, (1) communication among members of the political system and, (2) socialization into the “rules of the game.”

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 61 , Issue 4 , December 1967 , pp. 1002 - 1009
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1967

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Lewis A. Froman, Jr., Charles Cnudde and Lyman Drake for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper. The efforts of George Sherinian and Timothy Gilmore in assisting with data gathering are most appreciated.

References

1 S. M. Lipset, “Some Social Requisites of Democracy,” this Review, 53 (March, 1959), 69–105. See also his Political Man (New York: Doubleday, 1960), Chapters 2 and 3. Cutright, Philips, “National Political Development: Its Measurement and Social Correlates,” in Polsby, Nelson W., Dentier, Robert A. and Smith, Paul A., (eds.), Politics and Social Life (Boston: Houghton Mimin Co., 1963), 569–582.Google ScholarLerner, Daniel, The Paising of Traditional Society (New York: The Free Press, 1958).Google Scholar See also his “Communication Systems and Social Systems: A Statistical Exploration in History and Policy,” Behavioral Science, 2 (1957), 266–275. Pye, Lucian, Aspects of Political Development (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., Inc., 1966).Google ScholarAlmond, Gabriel A. and Verba, Sidney, The Civic Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Cutright, “National Political Development,” see especially 577–578.

3 Lipset, “Some Social Requisities of Democracy,” op. cit.

4 Cutright, , “National Political Development,” op. cit. p. 571.Google Scholar

5 Nations receive two points for each year that a parliament exists in which the lower or only house contains representatives of two or more political parties and the minority party or parties have at least 30% of the vote. They receive one point if the multiple party rule is operative but the 30% rule violated and no points when neither of these conditions exist. Points are given to the executive branch on the following basis: one point for every year that the nation has a chief executive in office by virtue of a direct vote in an open election in which he faced political competition, or was chosen by a political party in a two-or more-party system as defined by the conditions necessary to gain two points on the legislative point assignment scheme. No points are given for years in which the nation was ruled by a chief executive selected in some manner other than the above. The study covers a 22 year period (1940–1961). It is thus possible for a nation to receive anywhere from 0 to 66 points.

Cutright has used a similar index as a “political representativeness” scale in an examination of the relationship of economic and political development to the growth of social security programs in a number of countries. Many of the criticisms of the index developed in this paper apply to its use as a political representativeness scale. In particular, it is interesting to note that, while in this later study the index is said to measure this political dimension, no attempt was made to build into the index any participation data. Cf. Cutright, Philips, “Political Structure, Economic Development and National Security Programs,” American Journal of Sociology, 70 (1965), 537–548.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Down's conditions for a democratic political system are:

1. A single party (or coalition of parties) is chosen by popular election to run the governing apparatus.

2. Such elections are held within periodic intervals, the duration of which cannot be altered by the party in power acting alone.

3. All adults who are permanent residents ot the society, are sane and abide by the laws of the land are eligible to vote in each such election.

4. Each voter may cast one and only one vote in each election.

5. Any party (or coalition) receiving the support of a majority of those voting is entitled to take over the powers of government until the next election.

6. The losing parties in an election never try by force or any illegal means to prevent the winning party (or parties) from taking office.

7. The party in power never attempts to restrict the political activities of any citizens or other parties as long as they make no attempt to overthrow the government by force.

8. There are two or more parties competing for control of the governing apparatus in every election.

Downs, Anthony, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper and Row, 1957), 23–24.Google Scholar

Dahl's definitional characteristics of polyarchy are:

During the voting period:

1. Every member of the organization performs the acts we assume to constitute an expression of preference among the scheduled alternatives, e.g., voting.

2. In tabulating these expressions (votes), the weight assigned to the choice of each individual is identical.

3. The alternative with the greatest number of votes is declared the winning choice.

During the prevoting period:

4. Any member who perceives a set of alternatives, at least one of which he regards as preferable to any of the alternatives presently scheduled, can insert his preferred alternative(s) among those scheduled for voting.

5. All individuals possess identical information about the alternatives.

During the postvoting period:

6. Alternatives (leaders or policies) with the greatest number of votes displace any alternatives (leaders or policies) with fewer votes.

7. The orders of elected officials are executed.

During the interelection stage:

8.1 Either all interelection decisions are subordinate or executory to those arrived at during the election stage, i.e., elections are in a sense controlling.

8.2 Or new decisions during the interelection period are governed by the preceding seven conditions, operating, however, under rather different institutional circumstances.

8.3 Or both.

Dahl, Robert A., A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956), p. 84.Google Scholar For a modification of Dahl's polyarchy model, see Neubauer, Deane E., On the Theory of Polyarchy: An Empirical Study of Democracy in Ten Countries (unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Yale University, 1965).Google Scholar

7 For a more comprehensive discussion of this indicator see Neubauer, op. cit.

8 In order to avoid unnecessary complications in comparing these results with those obtained by Cutright, the democratic performance index was constructed in a manner analogous to that used by Cutright to construct the political development index. In fact, to enhance overall comparability between the two studies, his scoring procedure was utilized on all the data. The data for the independent variables (the indexes of communication, urbanization, education and agricultural employment) were obtained by consulting the sources cited by Cutright. The individual scores for each indicator were T-scored, combined (by adding T-scores) into the appropriate indexes and those T-scored. The twenty-three countries comprising the sample were: Austria, Denmark, Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Finland, Luxembourg, Norway, New Zealand, Canada, Israel, Venezuela, United States, Great Britain, France, Sweden, Italy, The Federal Republic, Mexico, Chile, Japan and India. The “N” for the communications index is 21, Luxembourg and Venezuela are not included.

9 Neubauer, op. cit.

10 Dahl, Robert A., Pluralist Democracy in the United States: Conflict and Consent (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1967).Google Scholar

11 Eckstein, Harry, A Theory of Stable Democracy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959).Google Scholar For additional uses of this form of explanation see: Sartori, Giovanni, “European Political Parties: The Case of Polarized Pluralism,” in LaPalombara, Joseph and Weiner, Myron (eds.), Political Parties and Political Development (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), 137–176Google Scholar; Dahl, Robert A. (ed.), Political Oppositions in Western Democracies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966).Google Scholar

12 With one exception. One of Cutright's indicators gives points to nations which for each year had in existence a parliament “whose members were the representatives of one or more political parties, but where the 30% rule was violated”, (p. 547). This is one of the most unfortunate features of his index, for it permits parliaments such as the Soviet parliament to be considered as a functional decision-making organ. Communist states consequently receive scores on the index which are unjustified from any practical point of view.

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