ABSTRACT
It is very puzzling, at first blush, why mass democracies should ever have emerged. In principle, political elites have no interest in establishing a regime in which they share power with the common people, and they usually have the capacity to prevent the people from forcing the elite to cede power. Yet, many states today are democratic. This chapter presents and defends a contemporary version of modernization theory, built on the empirical observation of a strong correlation between economic development and democratic transitions. Five key causal mechanisms linking development and democracy are considered, anchored in the logic of social conflict between ordinary citizens and elites. But because evidence suggests democracies are created not only ‘from below’ but also ‘from above’, other, more elite-centered mechanisms of democratic transition are also considered. International, informational, and various other factors sometimes induce elites, at least minimally but sometimes also more robustly, to open up their autocratic regimes. The chapter concludes by examining how well (or badly) modernization theory applies to China, where significant development has already occurred but democracy is yet to form. The discussion involves the changing social conditions in China, the Social Credit System, and insights from institutional economics.
