Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-d8cs5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-14T12:16:51.418Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Political democracy, state strength and economic growth in LDCs: a cross-national analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Erich Weede
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

While economic growth is not a sufficient condition for the elimination of hunger and abject poverty, it certainly looks like a necessary condition, particularly in the poorest countries (Ahluwalia, Carter and Chenery? 1979), So economic growth is desirable, and desired, in the third world (irrespective of one's evaluation of the effects of growth in industrialized, high income countries). As well as pressures for growth? there are internal and external pressures for the democratization of the political systems of less developed countries. Yet some authors claim that democracy and economic growth are incompatible. A strong version of the incompatibility thesis is maintained by the sociologist Andreski (1969: 266): ‘Democracy is compatible with rapid economic growth only in countries which already have enough resources to make heavy investment a relatively painless process. There is no case of a democratic government breaking through a vicious circle of misery and parasitism.’ Though qualifying the incompatibility proposition and restricting it to ‘later phases of development’, Huntington and Nelson (1976: 42–3) similarly argue that ‘… higher levels of political participation tend to produce lower rates of economic growth’. While political participation is not identical to democracy, the latter obviously permits the former. If democracy and growth were indeed incompatible in LDCs (or some subgroup thereof), then a major problem of choice has to be faced.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 10 , Issue 4 , October 1984 , pp. 297 - 312
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adelman, Irma and Morris, Cynthia T., Society, Politics, and Economic Development (Baltimore, 1967).Google Scholar
Ahluwalia, Montek S., Carter, Nicholas G. and Chenery, Hollis B., ‘Growth and Poverty in Developing Countries’, Journal of Development Economics, 6 (1979), pp. 299–341.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allison, Paul D., ‘Testing for Interaction in Multiple Regression’, American Journal of Sociology, 83 (1977), pp. 144–53.Google Scholar
Andreski, Stanislav, Parasitism and Subversion, the case of Latin America (New York, 1969).Google Scholar
Ballmer-Cao, Thanh-Huyen and Scheidegger, Jürg, Compendium of Data for World-System Analysis (Zürich, 1979).Google Scholar
Bauer, Peter T., Equality, the Third World and Economic Delusion (London, 1981).Google Scholar
Blalock, Hubert M., Causal Inferences in Nonexperimental Research (Chapel Hill, NC, 1964).Google Scholar
Blalock, , ‘A Causal Approach to Nonrandom Measurement Errors’, American Political Science Review, 64 (1970), pp. 1099–111.Google Scholar
Bollen, Kenneth A., ‘Issues in the Comparative Measurement of Political Democracy’, American Sociological Review, 45 (1980), pp. 370–90.Google Scholar
Bollen, Kenneth A. and Grandjean, Burke D., ‘The Dimension(s) of Democracy: Further Issues in the Measurement and Effects of Political Democracy’, American Sociological Review, 46 (1981), pp. 651–9.Google Scholar
Bomschier, Volker, ‘Multinational Corporations and Economic Growth’, Journal of Development Economics, 1 (1980), pp. 191–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bornschier, Volker, Chase-Dunn, Christopher and Rubinson, Richard, ‘Cross-National Evidence of the Effects of Foreign Investment and Aid on Economic Growth and Inequality. A Survey of Findings and a Reanalysis’, American Journal of Sociology, 84 (3) (1978), pp. 651–83.Google Scholar
Bruton, Henry J., ‘Industrialization Policy and Income Distribution’, pp. 79–125 inGoogle Scholar
Frank, Charles R. and Webb, Richard C. (eds.), Income Distribution and Growth in the Less-Developed Countries (Washington, DC, 1977).Google Scholar
Buchanan, James M., Tollison, Robert D. and Tullock, Gordon (eds.), Toward a Theory of the Rent-Seeking Society (College Station, Texas, 1980).Google Scholar
William Dick, G., ‘Authoritarian versus Nonauthoritarian Approaches to Economic Development’, Journal of Political Economy, 82 (1974), pp. 817–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frank, Charles R. and Webb, Richard C., (eds.), Income Distribution and Growth in Less Developed Countries (Washington, DC, 1977).Google Scholar
Friedman, Milton and Rose, , Free to Choose (New York, 1979).Google Scholar
Goldberger, Arthur S., ‘On Boudon’s Method of Linear Causal Analysis’, American Sociological Review, 35 (1970), pp. 97–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
August von Hayek, Friedrich, The Constitution of Liberty (Chicago, 1960).Google Scholar
Horvat, Branko, ‘The Relation between Rate of Growth and Level of Development’, Journal of Development Studies, 10 (1974), pp. 382–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huntington, Samuel P. and Dominguez, Jorge I., ‘Political Development’, pp. 1–114 inGoogle Scholar
Greenstein, Fred I. and Polsby, Nelson W. (eds.), Handbook of Political Science. Volume 3. Macro-political Theory (Reading, Mass., 1975).Google Scholar
Huntington, Samuel P. and Nelson, Joan M., No Easy Choice, Political Participation in Developing Countries (Cambridge, Mass., 1976).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackman, Robert W., ‘A Note on the Measurement of Growth Rates in Cross-National Research’, American Journal of Sociology, 86 (3) (1980), pp. 604–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jagodzinski, Wolfgang and Weede, Erich, ‘Testing Curvilinear Propositions by Polynomial Regression with Particular Reference to the Interpretation of Standardized Solutions’, Quality and Quantity, 15 (1981), pp. 447–63.Google Scholar
Kuznets, Simon, Modem Economic Growth, 7th edn. (New Haven, Conn., 1976).Google Scholar
Lipton, Michael, Why Poor People Stay Poor (London, 1977).Google Scholar
Maddison, Angus, Economic Growth in Japan and the USSR (London, 1969).Google Scholar
Marsh, Robert M., ‘Does Democracy Hinder Economic Development in the Latecomer Developing Nations?’ Comparative Social Research, 2 (1979), pp. 215–48.Google Scholar
Meyer, John W. and Hannan, Michael T., (eds.), National Development and the World System: Educational, Economic, and Political Change, 1950–1970 (Chicago, 1979).Google Scholar
Meyer, John W., Hannan, Michael T., Rubinson, Richard and Thomas, George M., ‘National Economic Development, 1950–1970: Social and Political Factors’, pp. 85–116 inGoogle Scholar
Meyer, John W. and Hannan, Michael T. (eds.), National Development and the World System, Educational, Economic, and Political Change, 1950–1970 (Chicago, 1979).Google Scholar
Mincer, Jacob, ‘Human Capital and Earnings’, pp. 103–28 inGoogle Scholar
Atkinson, A. B. (ed.), Wealth, Income, and Inequality (London, 1980).Google Scholar
Robinson, Sherman, ‘Sources of Growth in Less Developed Countries’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 85 (1971), pp. 391–408.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosen, S., ‘Human Capital: A Survey of Empirical Research’, pp. 129–50 inGoogle Scholar
Atkinson, A. B. (ed.), Wealth, Income, and Inequality (London, 1980).Google Scholar
Rubinson, Richard, ‘The World-Economy and the Distribution of Income within States’, American Sociological Review, 41 (4) (1976), pp. 638–59.Google Scholar
Rubinson, , ‘Dependence, Government Revenue, and Economic Growth, 1955–1970’, Studies in Comparative International Development, 12 (1977), pp. 3–28.Google Scholar
Sörbom, Dag, ‘An Alternative to the Methodology for Analysis of Covariance’, Psychometrika, 43 (September 1978), pp. 381–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stolzenberg, Ross M., ‘The Measurement and Decomposition of Causal Effects in Nonlinear and Nonadditive Models’, pp. 459–88 inGoogle Scholar
Schuessler, Karl F. (ed.), Sociological Methodology 1980 (San Francisco, 1980).Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles L. and Hudson, Michael C., World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators, 2nd ed. (New Haven, Conn., 1972).Google Scholar
Webb, Richard C., ‘Wage Policy and Income Distribution in Developing Countries’, pp. 215–58 inGoogle Scholar
Frank, Charles R. and Webb, Richard C. (eds.), Income Distribution and Growth in the Less-Developed Countries (Washington, DC, 1977).Google Scholar
Weede, Erich, ‘Beyond Misspecification in Sociological Analyses of Income Inequality’, American Sociological Review, 45, 3 (1980), pp. 497–501.Google Scholar
Weede, , ‘Dependenztheorie und Wirtschaftswachstum’, Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 33, 4 (1981a), pp. 690–707.Google Scholar
Weede, , ‘Militär, Multis und Wirtschaft’, Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 7 (1981b), pp. 113–27.Google Scholar
Weede, , ‘The Impact of Democracy on Economic Growth’, Kyklos, 36, 1 (1983a), pp. 21–39.Google Scholar
Weede, , ‘Das Verhältnis von Demokratisierung und Wirtschaftswachstum in Entwicklungs-ländern’, pp. 154–68 inGoogle Scholar
Hartwich, Hans-Hermann (ed.), Gesellschaftliche Probleme als Anstoβ und Folge von Politik (Wiesbaden, 1983b).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weede, Erich and Jagodzinski, Wolfgang, ‘National Security, Income Inequality, and Economic Growth’, Social Science and Policy Research (Seoul, 1981), III (3), pp. 91–107.Google Scholar
Weede, Erich and Tiefenbach, Horst, ‘Some Recent Explanations of Income Inequality’, International Studies Quarterly, 25, 2 (1981a), pp. 255–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weede, and Tiefenbach, , ‘Three Dependency Explanations of Economic Growth’, European Journal of Political Research, 9 (1981b), pp. 391–406.Google Scholar
World Bank, World Development Report 1979 (London, 1979).Google Scholar
World Bank, World Development Report 1980 (London, 1980).Google Scholar
World Bank, World Development Report 1981 (London, 1981).Google Scholar