E

Marxist perspectives argue that the development of capitalism effectively separated the political and economic spheres of society, broke down feudal bases of political power, and provided the conditions for the emergence of democracy. The search for the economic requirements of democracy primarily uses two methods found in the sub-field of comparative politics. The first method collects economic and political indicators on a large sample of countries at one point in time or over time, and then uses various forms of quantitative analysis to test the relationship between key aspects of the economy and different forms of political rule. The second method compares a smaller sample of countries over time using qualitative and quantitative techniques, and includes important intervening variables thought to lie between the economic and political variables. Both approaches are deterministic since they specify larger causal forces that account for the emergence and maintenance of democracy.