ABSTRACT
The theory of modernisation as an explanation for democratisation has demonstrated great explanatory power concerning developments in unlike countries (Lipset 1981;1 Dahl 1971; Diamond 1992; Hadenius 1992, Lipset, Seong and Torres 1993). It is therefore also constantly under debate. Increasingly sophisticated techniques have been used to challenge the direction of the causality (Burkhart and Lewis-Beck 1994; Leblang 1997) and the variables in the model (Diamond 1992). However, the debate has not only taken place within the paradigm itself, but also come to encompass other approaches, in particular transitology, which was developed in direct response to the structuralism and the implicit determinism of modernisation theory. Transitology brought attention to the political actors and Przeworski and Limongi (1997) convincingly qualified modernisation theory, arguing that transitions to democracy are not products of modernisation, but that economic development and growth improve the chances that democracy will survive once installed by political actors. In effect this debate between what have become the mainstream approaches to democratisation lands squarely in the old problem of structure and agency. Where does this leave the much-heralded ‘new institutionalism’ in relation to the mainstream approaches and the study of democratisation?
