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Toward a Communications Theory of Democratic Political Development: A Causal Model

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Donald J. McCrone  and
Charles F. Cnudde
Donald J. McCrone
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin
Charles F. Cnudde
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin
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Extract

The construction of an empirical theory of democratic political development is dependent on the formulation of causal propositions which are generalizations of the developmental process. To date, several essential steps in the process of constructing such a theory have been taken. First, concept formation and clarification by students of political development has led to an emphasis upon political democracy as one of the dependent variables for the field. Second, the gathering and publication of quantitative indicators of social, economic, cultural, and political phenomena provide a firm basis for subsequent empirical inquiry. Finally, correlational analysis has identified numerous variables which are closely associated with the development of democratic political institutions.

The next major task is the formulation and testing of empirical models of democratic political development which provide a basis for inferring causal relationships by distinguishing between spurious correlations and indirect and direct effects. The accomplishment of this task would enable us to derive explanatory propositions concerning the process of democratic political development.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 61 , Issue 1 , March 1967 , pp. 72 - 79
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1967

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References

1 For an interesting discussion of this material as well as important findings on factors which relate to democracy, see Lipset, Seymour Martin, “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy,” this Review, 53 (1959), pp. 69–105.Google Scholar

2 Russett, Bruce M., et al., World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964).Google Scholar

3 Cutright, Phillips, “National Political Development,” in Polsby, Nelson, et al. (eds.), Politics and Social Life (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1963), pp. 569–582.Google Scholar

4 For an example of this type of model testing in political science, see Cnudde, Charles F. and McCrone, Donald J., “The Linkage Between Constituency Attitudes and Congressional Voting Behavior: A Causal Model,” this Review, LX (1966), pp. 66–72.Google Scholar

5 Lipset, op. cit., p. 71.

6 Loc. cit.

7 Ibid., pp. 73–74. Latin American political systems are classified somewhat differently, but still dichotomously.

8 For the pitfalls involved in choosing cut-points, see Blalock, Hubert M. Jr., Causal Inferences in Nonexperimental Research (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1964).Google Scholar

9 Cutright, op. cit., p. 571.

10 Ibid., p. 574. Scores may vary from 0 to 66 based on a total of three for each of twenty-two years (1940–1961).

11 Of course political scientists' interest in democracy includes more than the existence and maintenance of democratic institutions. Two lines of further refinements have relied upon system-level democratic “behaviors” to make additional distinctions among political systems with democratic institutions. One of these developments deals with Dahl's concept of polyarchy, the other with political equality. While extremely meaningful, these concepts require much ingenuity to operationalize, especially on a cross-national level. For the concept of polyarchy see Dahl, Robert A., A Preface to Democratic Theory, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1956), p. 84.Google Scholar For operational measures of the concept see Deane E. Neubauer, “Some Conditions of Democracy” (forthcoming), and Haywood R. Alker, Jr., “Causal Inference and Political Analysis” (forthcoming). For an operational measure of political equality within the United States, see Cnudde, Charles F., “Consensus, ‘Rules of the Game’ and Democratic Politics: The Case of Race Politics in the South” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Political Science, University of North Carolina, 1966).Google Scholar

12 Lipset, op. cit., pp. 76–77. He relies on means and ranges to establish the relationships.

13 Cutright, op. cit., p. 577.

14 For theoretical contributions which indicate the central role of communications systems in more general types of political development, see Pye, Lucian W., (ed.), Communications and Political Development (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1963).Google Scholar

15 Deutsch, Karl W., The Nerves of Government (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1963)Google Scholar; Deutsch, Karl W., “Communication Theory and Political Integration,” in Jacob, Phillip E. and Toscano, James V. (eds.), The Integration of Political Communities (Philadelphia and New York: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1964), pp. 46–74.Google Scholar For the relationship between communication and civic cooperation at the individual level in nations which vary in the degree to which democracy is successfully institutionalized, see Almond, Gabriel A. and Verba, Sidney, The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), pp. 378–381.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Cutright, op. cit., p. 577.

17 Lerner, Daniel, The Passing of Traditional Society (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1958).Google Scholar

18 Ibid., p. 60.

19 Blalock, op. cit., p. 62. Also see Simon, Herbert A., “Spurious Correlations: A Causal Interpretation,” Journal of the American Statistical Association, 49 (1954), pp. 467–479.Google Scholar

20 Blalock, op. cit., pp. 60–94.

21 Wright, Sewall, “Correlation and Causation,” Journal of Agricultural Research, 20 (1921), pp. 557–585.Google Scholar

22 Cutright, op. cit., p. 577.

23 Social scientists are becoming increasingly aware of the similarities in the logic of these techniques. Boudon, for example, subsumes them all under a more general formulation which he calls “dependence analysis”: Boudon, Raymond, “A Method of Linear Causal Analysis: Dependence Analysis,” American Sociological Review, 30 (1965), pp. 365–374.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 See Cnudde, Charles P., “Legislative Behavior and Citizen Characteristics: Problems in Theory and Method,” (a paper delivered at the Midwest Conference of Political Scientists, Chicago, Ill., 04 29, 1966).Google Scholar

25 Cutright, op. cit., pp. 577–581.

26 Ibid., p. 580.

27 Clearly, there is no incompatibility between Cutright's technique of using the prediction equation based on the regression line and this type of causal analysis. In fact, Cutright's technique applied at each stage of the developmental process would effectively isolate the deviant cases at each stage. His present research on historical trends in political development should also shed light on the adequacy of this causal model. See ibid., pp. 577–581 for a discussion of Cutright's techniques and research.

28 Cnudde and McCrone, op. cit., p. 72.

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