Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) or self-education (also self-learning, self-study and self-teaching) is the practice of education without the guidance of teachers. Autodidacts are self-taught people who learn a subject through self-study. Autodidacticism may involve, complement, or be an alternative to formal education. Formal education itself may have a hidden curriculum that requires self-study for the uninitiated.
Generally, autodidacts choose the subject they will study, their
studying material, and the studying rhythm and time. Autodidacts may or
may not have formal education, and their study may be either a
complement or an alternative to formal education. Many notable contributions have been made by autodidacts.
Self-education techniques can include reading educational books or websites, watching educational videos and listening to educational audio recordings, or by visiting infoshops. One uses some space as a learning space, where one uses critical thinking to develop study skills within the broader learning environment until they've reached an academic comfort zone.
Various terms are used to describe self-education. One such is heutagogy, coined in 2000 by Stewart Hase and Chris Kenyon of Southern Cross University in Australia; others are self-directed learning and self-determined learning. In the heutagogy paradigm, a learner should be at the centre of their own learning. A truly self-determined learning approach also sees the heutagogic
learner exploring different approaches to knowledge in order to learn;
there is an element of experimentation underpinned by a personal
curiosity.
Andragogy "strive[s] for autonomy and self-direction in learning", while Heutagogy "identif[ies] the potential to learn from novel experiences as a matter of course [...] manage their own learning". Ubuntugogy is a type of cosmopolitanism that has a collectivist ethics of awareness concerning the African diaspora.
Modern era
Autodidacticism is sometimes a complement of modern formal education. As a complement to formal education, students would be encouraged to do more independent work.
Before the twentieth century, only a small minority of people received an advanced academic education. As stated by Joseph Whitworth in his influential report on industry and innovators dated from 1853, literacy rates were higher in the United States than in England. However, even in the U.S., most children were not completing high school.
High school education was necessary to become a teacher. In modern
times, a larger percentage of those completing high school also attended
college, usually to pursue a professional degree, such as law or
medicine, or a divinity degree.
Collegiate teaching was based on the classics (Latin, philosophy,
ancient history, theology) until the early nineteenth century. There
were few if any institutions of higher learning offering studies in
engineering or science before 1800. Institutions such as the Royal Society
did much to promote scientific learning, including public lectures. In
England, there were also itinerant lecturers offering their service,
typically for a fee.
Prior to the nineteenth century, there were many important
inventors working as millwrights or mechanics who, typically, had
received an elementary education and served an apprenticeship. Mechanics, instrument makers and surveyors had various mathematics training. James Watt was a surveyor and instrument maker and is described as being "largely self-educated". Watt, like some other autodidacts of the time, became a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the Lunar Society.
In the eighteenth century these societies often gave public lectures
and were instrumental in teaching chemistry and other sciences with
industrial applications which were neglected by traditional
universities. Academies also arose to provide scientific and technical
training.
Years of schooling in the United States began to increase sharply
in the early twentieth century. This phenomenon was seemingly related
to increasing mechanization displacing child labor.
The automated glass bottle-making machine is said to have done more for
education than child labor laws because boys were no longer needed to
assist. However, the number of boys employed in this particular industry was
not that large; it was mechanization in several sectors of industry that
displaced child labor toward education. For males in the U.S. born
1886–90, years of school averaged 7.86, while for those born in 1926–30,
years of school averaged 11.46.
One of the most recent trends in education is that the classroom
environment should cater towards students' individual needs, goals, and
interests. This model adopts the idea of inquiry-based learning
where students are presented with scenarios to identify their own
research, questions and knowledge regarding the area. As a form of discovery learning,
students in today's classrooms are being provided with more opportunity
to "experience and interact" with knowledge, which has its roots in
autodidacticism.
Successful self-teaching can require self-discipline and
reflective capability. Some research suggests that the ability to
regulate one's own learning may need to be modeled to some students so
that they become active learners, while others learn dynamically via a
process outside conscious control. To interact with the environment, a framework has been identified to
determine the components of any learning system: a reward function,
incremental action value functions and action selection methods. Rewards work best in motivating learning when they are specifically
chosen on an individual student basis. New knowledge must be
incorporated into previously existing information as its value is to be
assessed. Ultimately, these scaffolding techniques, as described by Vygotsky (1978) and problem solving methods are a result of dynamic decision making.
In his book Deschooling Society, philosopher Ivan Illich
strongly criticized 20th-century educational culture and the
institutionalization of knowledge and learning - arguing that
institutional schooling as such is an irretrievably flawed model of
education - advocating instead ad-hoc co-operative networks through
which autodidacts could find others interested in teaching themselves a
given skill or about a given topic, supporting one another by pooling
resources, materials, and knowledge.
Secular and modern societies have given foundations for new systems of education and new kinds of autodidacts. As Internet access has become more widespread the World Wide Web (explored using search engines such as Google) in general, and websites such as Wikipedia (including parts of it that were included in a book or referenced in a reading list), YouTube, Udemy, Udacity and Khan Academy
in particular, have developed as learning centers for many people to
actively and freely learn together. Organizations like The Alliance for
Self-Directed Education (ASDE) have been formed to publicize and provide
guidance for self-directed education. Entrepreneurs like Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates are considered influential self-teachers.
The first philosophical claim supporting an autodidactic program to the study of nature and God was in the philosophical novelHayy ibn Yaqdhan (Alive son of the Vigilant), whose titular hero is considered the archetypal autodidact. The story is a medieval autodidactic utopia, a philosophical treatise
in a literary form, which was written by the Andalusian philosopher Ibn Tufail in the 1160s in Marrakesh.
It is a story about a feral boy, an autodidact prodigy who masters
nature through instruments and reason, discovers laws of nature by
practical exploration and experiments, and gains summum bonum through a mystical mediation and communion with God. The hero rises from his initial state of tabula rasa
to a mystical or direct experience of God after passing through the
necessary natural experiences. The focal point of the story is that
human reason, unaided by society and its conventions or by religion, can
achieve scientific knowledge, preparing the way to the mystical or
highest form of human knowledge.
Commonly translated as "The Self-Taught Philosopher" or "The Improvement of Human Reason", Ibn-Tufayl's story Hayy Ibn-Yaqzan
inspired debates about autodidacticism in a range of historical fields
from classical Islamic philosophy through Renaissance humanism and the
European Enlightenment. In his book Reading Hayy Ibn-Yaqzan: a Cross-Cultural History of Autodidacticism,Avner Ben-Zaken
showed how the text traveled from late medieval Andalusia to early
modern Europe and demonstrated the intricate ways in which
autodidacticism was contested in and adapted to diverse cultural
settings.
Autodidacticism apparently intertwined with struggles over Sufism in twelfth-century Marrakesh; controversies about the role of philosophy in pedagogy in fourteenth-century Barcelona; quarrels concerning astrology in RenaissanceFlorence in which Pico della Mirandola
pleads for autodidacticism against the strong authority of intellectual
establishment notions of predestination; and debates pertaining to experimentalism
in seventeenth-century Oxford. Pleas for autodidacticism echoed not
only within close philosophical discussions; they surfaced in struggles
for control between individuals and establishments.
In the story of Black American self-education, Heather Andrea Williams presents a historical account to examine Black American's relationship to literacy during slavery, the Civil War and the first decades of freedom. Many of the personal accounts tell of individuals who have had to teach themselves due to racial discrimination in education.
Future role
The
role of self-directed learning continues to be investigated in learning
approaches, along with other important goals of education, such as
content knowledge, epistemic practices and collaboration. As colleges and universities offer distance learning degree programs and secondary schools provide cyber school
options for K–12 students, technology provides numerous resources that
enable individuals to have a self-directed learning experience. Several
studies show these programs function most effectively when the "teacher"
or facilitator is a full owner of virtual space to encourage a broad
range of experiences to come together in an online format. This allows self-directed learning to encompass both a chosen path of
information inquiry, self-regulation methods and reflective discussion
among experts as well as novices in a given area. Furthermore, massive open online courses (MOOCs) make autodidacticism easier and thus more common.
Democratization, or democratisation, is the structural government transition from an authoritarian government to a more democratic political regime, including substantive political changes moving in a democratic direction.
Whether and to what extent democratization occurs can be
influenced by various factors, including economic development,
historical legacies, civil society, and international processes. Some
accounts of democratization emphasize how elites drove democratization,
whereas other accounts emphasize grassroots bottom-up processes. How democratization occurs has also been used to explain other
political phenomena, such as whether a country goes to a war or whether
its economy grows.
Theories of democratization seek to explain a large macro-level
change of a political regime from authoritarianism to democracy.
Symptoms of democratization include reform of the electoral system, increased suffrage and reduced political apathy.
Measures of democratization
Democracy indices enable the quantitative assessment of democratization. Some common democracy indices are Freedom House, Polity data series, V-Dem Democracy indices and Democracy Index. Democracy indices can be quantitative or categorical. Some disagreements among scholars concern the concept of democracy and how to measure democracy – and what democracy indices should be used.
Waves of democratization
One way to summarize the outcome theories of democratization seek to account is with the idea of waves of democratization.
The three waves of democracy identified by Samuel P. Huntington
A wave of democratization refers to a major surge of democracy in history. Samuel P. Huntington identified three waves of democratization that have taken place in history. The first one brought democracy to Western Europe and North America in
the 19th century. It was followed by a rise of dictatorships during the Interwar period. The second wave began after World War II, but lost steam between 1962 and the mid-1970s. The latest wave began in 1974 and is still ongoing. Democratization of Latin America and the former Eastern Bloc is part of this third wave.
Waves of democratization can be followed by waves of
de-democratization. Thus, Huntington, in 1991, offered the following
depiction.
• First wave of democratization, 1828–1926
• First wave of de-democratization, 1922–42
• Second wave of democratization, 1943–62
• Second wave of de-democratization, 1958–75
• Third wave of democratization, 1974–
The idea of waves of democratization has also been used and scrutinized by many other authors, including Renske Doorenspleet, John Markoff, Seva Gunitsky, and Svend-Erik Skaaning.
According to Seva Gunitsky, from the 18th century to the Arab Spring (2011–2012), 13 democratic waves can be identified.
The V-Dem Democracy Report
identified for the year 2023 9 cases of stand-alone democratization in
East Timor, The Gambia, Honduras, Fiji, Dominican Republic, Solomon
Islands, Montenegro, Seychelles, and Kosovo and 9 cases of U-Turn
Democratization in Thailand, Maldives, Tunisia, Bolivia, Zambia, Benin,
North Macedonia, Lesotho, and Brazil.
By country
Throughout the history of democracy,
enduring democracy advocates succeed almost always through peaceful
means when there is a window of opportunity. One major type of
opportunity include governments weakened after a violent shock. The other main avenue occurs when autocrats are not threatened by elections, and democratize while retaining power. The path to democracy can be long with setbacks along the way.
Athens
The Athenian Revolution (508–507 BCE) was a revolt by the people of Athens that overthrew the ruling aristocraticoligarchy, establishing the almost century-long self-governance of Athens in the form of a participatory democracy – open to all free male citizens. It was a reaction to a broader trend of tyranny that had swept through Athens and the rest of Greece.
Benin
The 1989–1990 unrest in Benin was a wave of protests, demonstrations, nonviolent boycotts, grassroots rallies, opposition campaigns and strikes in Benin against the government of Mathieu Kérékou, unpaid salaries, and new budget laws.
Brazil
Diretas Já demonstration in Brasília for open elections
The redemocratization of Brazil (Portuguese: abertura política, lit.'political opening') was the 1974–1988 period of liberalization under the country's military dictatorship, ending with the decline of the regime, the signing of the country's new constitution, and the transition to democracy. Then-president Ernesto Geisel began the process of liberalization (nicknamed Portuguese: distensão) in 1974, by allowing for the Brazilian Democratic Movement
opposition party's participation in congressional elections. He worked
to address human rights violations and began to undo the military
dictatorship's founding legislation, the Institutional Acts, in 1978. General João Figueiredo,
elected the next year, continued the transition to democracy, freeing
the last political prisoners in 1980 and instituting direct elections in
1982. The 1985 election of a ruling opposition party marked the
military dictatorship's end. The process of liberalization ultimately
was successful, culminating with the promulgation of the 1988 Brazilian Constitution.
Chile
The military dictatorship of Chile led by General Augusto Pinochet ended on 11 March 1990 and was replaced by a democratically elected government. The transition period lasted roughly two years, although some aspects of the process lasted significantly longer. Unlike most democratic transitions, led by either the elite or the people, Chile's democratic transition process is known as an intermediate transition – a transition involving both the regime and the civil society. Throughout the transition, though the regime increased repressive violence, it simultaneously supported liberalization – progressively strengthening democratic institutions and gradually weakening those of the military.
Magna Carta in the British Library. The document was described as "the chief cause of Democracy in England".
In Great Britain, there was renewed interest in Magna Carta in the 17th century. The Parliament of England enacted the Petition of Right in 1628 which established certain liberties for subjects. The English Civil War (1642–1651) was fought between the King and an oligarchic but elected Parliament, during which the idea of a political party took form with groups debating rights to political representation during the Putney Debates of 1647. Subsequently, the Protectorate (1653–59) and the English Restoration (1660) restored more autocratic rule although Parliament passed the Habeas Corpus Act in 1679, which strengthened the convention that forbade detention lacking sufficient cause or evidence. The Glorious Revolution in 1688 established a strong Parliament that passed the Bill of Rights 1689, which codified certain rights and liberties for individuals. It set out the requirement for regular parliaments, free elections,
rules for freedom of speech in Parliament and limited the power of the
monarch, ensuring that, unlike much of the rest of Europe, royal absolutism would not prevail. Only with the Representation of the People Act 1884 did a majority of the males get the vote.
In Japan, limited democratic reforms were introduced during the Meiji period (when the industrial modernization of Japan began), the Taishō period (1912–1926), and the early Shōwa period. Despite pro-democracy movements such as the Freedom and People's Rights Movement
(1870s and 1880s) and some proto-democratic institutions, Japanese
society remained constrained by a highly conservative society and
bureaucracy. Historian Kent E. Calder
notes that writers that "Meiji leadership embraced constitutional
government with some pluralist features for essentially tactical
reasons" and that pre-World war II Japanese society was dominated by a
"loose coalition" of "landed rural elites, big business, and the
military" that was averse to pluralism and reformism. While the Imperial Diet survived the impacts of Japanese militarism, the Great Depression, and the Pacific War, other pluralistic institutions, such as political parties, did not. After World War II, during the Allied occupation, Japan adopted a much more vigorous, pluralistic democracy.
Voting in Valparaíso, Chile, in 1888
Madagascar
The 1990–1992 movement in Madagascar (Malagasy: Fihetsiketsehana 1990-1992 teto Madagasikara) was a period of widespread popular unrest in Madagascar between March 1990 and August 1992. It began as a wave of strike action against the autocratic regime of PresidentDidier Ratsiraka and culminated in the promulgation of a new constitution and a period of democratic transition leading to Ratsiraka handing the Presidency to opposition leader Albert Zafy in March 1993.
Latin America
Countries in Latin America
became independent between 1810 and 1825, and soon had some early
experiences with representative government and elections. All Latin
American countries established representative institutions soon after
independence, the early cases being those of Colombia in 1810, Paraguay and Venezuela in 1811, and Chile in 1818. Adam Przeworski shows that some experiments with representative institutions in Latin America occurred earlier than in most European countries. Mass democracy, in which the working class had the right to vote, become common only in the 1930s and 1940s.
In 1986, democratic institutions throughout the Philippines were reinstated during the deposition of the 20-year long Marcos regime through the People Power Revolution.
Barred constitutionally from running a third term by 1973, Ferdinand Marcos Sr. and his administration announced Proclamation No. 1081 on September 23, 1972, a declaration of martial law that deliberately decreed emergency powers over every democratic functions in the country, ostensibly under the pretext of a communist overthrow. Throughout the 20-year long martial law, most civil liberties
of the once democratic Philippines were suppressed, criminalized, or
just plainly abolished. By 1981, the loan-reliant economy of the Marcos
regime experienced unforecasted contractions when the Reagan administration announced the lowering of American interest rates during the global recession at that time, further plunging the Philippine economy into debt.
In 1983, Benigno Aquino Jr., a renowned dissident of the Marcos
regime, returned to the Philippines after his self-exile in the United
States. After disembarking China Airlines Flight 811 on Gate 8 at Manila International Airport, Aquino,
on the service steps of his van guarded by the Aviation Security
Command (AVESCOM), was shot multiple times by assailants outside the van
at point blank. He died from his wounds on the way to Fort Bonifacio
Hospital.
In response to the assassination of Aquino, public outrage revitalized in the form of Jose W. Diokno's nationalist liberal democrat umbrella organization, the Kilusan sa Kapangyarihan at Karapatan ng Bayan or KAAKBAY, then leading the Justice for Aquino Justice for All or JAJA movement. JAJA consisted of the social democrat-dominant August Twenty One Movement or the ATOM, led by Butz Aquino. These political movements and organizations coalesced into the Kongreso ng Mamamayang Pilipino
or KOMPIL, a call for parliamentarianism and democratization during
this period. In the middle of 1984, JAJA was replaced by the Coalition
for the Restoration of Democracy (CORD), with largely the same
principles.
The 1986 snap election was marred with electoral fraud, as discrepant figures from both the government-sponsored election canvasser, Commission on Elections (COMELEC), and the publicly-accredited poll watcher, National Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL),
finalized different tally figures. COMELEC announced a Marcos victory
of 10,810,000 votes against Aquino's 9,300,000, while NAMFREL announced
an Aquino victory of 7,840,000 votes against Marcos' 7,050,000. The
apparent tampered snap election stirred public unrest, even prompting
COMELEC technicians to proceed with a walkout mid-voting, an event cited to be the first act of civil disobedience during the People Power Revolution.
Occurring afterwards were a series of popular demonstrations
against the regime occurring from February 22 to 26, referred to as the
People Power Revolution, then culminating into the departure of Marcos
and the non-violent transition of power, restoring democracy under
Aquino's UNIDO. Immediately after Aquino's ascension, she ratified
Proclamation No. 3, a law declaring a provisional constitution and
government. The promulgation of the 1986 Freedom Constitution superseded many of the autocratic provisions of the 1973 Constitution,
abolishing the Regular Batasang Pambansa, along with plebiscitarian
dependence for the creation of a new Congress. The official adoption of
the 1987 Constitution signalled the completion of Philippine democratization.
Senegal
The Democracy in Senegal
was touted as one of the more stable democracies in Africa, with a long
tradition of peaceful democratic discourse. Democratization proceeded
gradually from 1970s to 1990s.
The democratic transition began two days after the death of Francisco Franco, in November 1975. Initially, "the political elites left over from Francoism" attempted
"reform of the institutions of dictatorship" through existing legal
means, but social and political pressure saw the formation of a democratic parliament in the 1977 general election,
which had the imprimatur to write a new constitution that was then
approved by referendum in December 1978. The following years saw the
beginning of the development of the rule of law and establishment of regional government, amidst ongoing terrorism, an attempted coup d'état and global economic problems. The Transition is said to have concluded after the landslide victory of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) in the 1982 general election and the first peaceful transfer of executive power.
Crowds gather at the state funeral of Lee Han-yeol in Seoul, July 9, 1987.
The June Democratic Struggle (Korean: 6월 민주 항쟁), also known as the June Democracy Movement and the June Uprising, was a nationwide pro-democracy movement in South Korea that generated mass protests from June 10 to 29, 1987. The demonstrations forced the ruling authoritarian government to hold direct presidential elections and institute other democratic reforms, which led to the establishment of the Sixth Republic, the present-day government of the Republic of Korea (South Korea).
Soviet Union
Demokratizatsiya (Russian: демократизация, IPA:[dʲɪməkrətʲɪˈzatsɨjə], democratization) was a slogan introduced by CPSU General SecretaryMikhail Gorbachev in January 1987 calling for the infusion of "democratic" elements into the Soviet Union's single-partygovernment. Gorbachev's Demokratizatsiya meant the introduction of multi-candidate—though not multi-party—elections for local Communist Party (CPSU) officials and Soviets.
In this way, he hoped to rejuvenate the party with reform-minded
personnel who would carry out his institutional and policy reforms. The CPSU would retain sole custody of the ballot box.
The overthrow of the Roman monarchy was an event in ancient Rome that took place between the 6th and 5th centuries BC where a political revolution replaced the then-existing Roman monarchy under Lucius Tarquinius Superbus with a republic.
The details of the event were largely forgotten by the Romans a few
centuries later; later Roman historians presented a narrative of the
events, traditionally dated to c. 509 BC, but it is largely believed by modern scholars to be fictitious.
Tunisia
The Tunisian revolution (Arabic: الثورة التونسية), also called the Jasmine Revolution and Tunisian Revolution of Dignity, was an intensive 28-day campaign of civil resistance. It included a series of street demonstrations which took place in Tunisia, and led to the ousting of longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011. It eventually led to a thorough democratization of the country and to
free and democratic elections, which had led to people believing it was
the only successful movement in the Arab Spring.
The American Revolution (1765–1783) created the United States. The new Constitution established a relatively strong federal national government that included an executive, a national judiciary, and a bicameral Congress that represented states in the Senate and the population in the House of Representatives. In many fields, it was a success ideologically in the sense that a true
republic was established that never had a single dictator, but voting rights were initially restricted to white male property owners (about 6% of the population). Slavery was not abolished in the Southern states until the constitutional Amendments of the Reconstruction era following the American Civil War (1861–1865). The provision of Civil Rights for African-Americans to overcome post-Reconstruction Jim Crow segregation in the South was achieved in the 1960s.
Causes and factors
There is considerable debate about the factors which affect (e.g., promote or limit) democratization. Factors discussed include economic, political, cultural, individual agents and their choices, international and historical.
Economic factors
Economic development and modernization theory
Industrialization was seen by many theorists as a driver of democratization.
Scholars such as Seymour Martin Lipset; Carles Boix, Susan Stokes, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Stephens, and John Stephens argue that economic development increases the likelihood of democratization. Initially argued by Lipset in 1959, this has subsequently been referred to as modernization theory.According to Daniel Treisman, there is "a strong and consistent
relationship between higher income and both democratization and
democratic survival in the medium term (10–20 years), but not
necessarily in shorter time windows." Robert Dahl argued that market economies provided favorable conditions for democratic institutions.
A higher GDP/capita correlates with democracy. Some claim the wealthiest democracies have never been observed to fall into authoritarianism. The rise of Hitler and of the Nazis in Weimar Germany can be seen as an
obvious counter-example. Although, in early 1930s, Germany was already
an advanced economy. By that time, the country was also living in a
state of economic crisis virtually since the first World War (in the
1910s). A crisis that was eventually worsened by the effects of the
Great Depression. There is also the general observation that democracy
was very rare before the industrial revolution. Empirical research thus
led many to believe that economic development either increases chances
for a transition to democracy, or helps newly established democracies
consolidate.
One study finds that economic development prompts democratization
but only in the medium run (10–20 years). This is because development
may entrench the incumbent leader while making it more difficult for him
deliver the state to a son or trusted aide when he exits. However, the debate about whether democracy is a consequence of wealth is far from conclusive.
Another study suggests that economic development depends on the political stability of a country to promote democracy. Clark, Robert and Golder, in their reformulation of Albert Hirschman's model of Exit, Voice and Loyalty, explain how it is not the increase of wealth in a country per se
which influences a democratization process, but rather the changes in
the socio-economic structures that come together with the increase of
wealth. They explain how these structural changes have been called out
to be one of the main reasons several European countries became
democratic. When their socioeconomic structures shifted because
modernization made the agriculture sector more efficient, bigger
investments of time and resources were used for the manufacture and
service sectors. In England, for example, members of the gentry began
investing more in commercial activities that allowed them to become
economically more important for the state. These new kinds of productive
activities came with new economic power. Their assets became more
difficult for the state to count and hence, more difficult to tax.
Because of this, predation was no longer possible and the state had to
negotiate with the new economic elites to extract revenue. A sustainable
bargain had to be reached because the state became more dependent on
its citizens remaining loyal, and with this, citizens now had the
leverage to be taken into account in the decision making process for the
country.
Adam Przeworski and Fernando Limongi
argue that while economic development makes democracies less likely to
turn authoritarian, there is insufficient evidence to conclude that
development causes democratization (turning an authoritarian state into a
democracy). Economic development can boost public support for authoritarian regimes in the short-to-medium term. Andrew J. Nathan argues that China is a problematic case for the thesis that economic development causes democratization. Michael Miller finds that development increases the likelihood of
"democratization in regimes that are fragile and unstable, but makes
this fragility less likely to begin with."
There is research to suggest that greater urbanization, through various pathways, contributes to democratization.
Numerous scholars and political thinkers have linked a large middle class to the emergence and sustenance of democracy, whereas others have challenged this relationship.
In "Non-Modernization" (2022), Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson
argue that modernization theory cannot account for various paths of
political development "because it posits a link between economics and
politics that is not conditional on institutions and culture and that
presumes a definite endpoint—for example, an 'end of history'."
A meta-analysis by Gerardo L. Munck
of research on Lipset's argument shows that a majority of studies do
not support the thesis that higher levels of economic development leads
to more democracy.
A 2024 study linked industrialization to democratization, arguing
that large-scale employment in manufacturing made mass mobilization
easier to occur and harder to repress.
Capital mobility
Theories
on causes to democratization such as economic development focuses on
the aspect of gaining capital. Capital mobility focuses on the movement
of money across borders of countries, different financial instruments,
and the corresponding restrictions. In the past, there have been
multiple theories as to what the relationship is between capital
mobility and democratization.
The "doomsway view" is that capital mobility is an inherent
threat to underdeveloped democracies by the worsening of economic
inequalities, favoring the interests of powerful elites and external
actors over the rest of society. This might lead to depending on money
from outside, therefore affecting the economic situation in other
countries. Sylvia Maxfield
argues that a bigger demand for transparency in both the private and
public sectors by some investors can contribute to a strengthening of
democratic institutions and can encourage democratic consolidation.
A 2016 study found that preferential trade agreements can increase democratization of a country, especially trading with other democracies. A 2020 study found increased trade between democracies reduces democratic backsliding, while trade between democracies and autocracies reduces democratization of the autocracies. Trade and capital mobility often involve international organizations, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and World Trade Organization (WTO), which can condition financial assistance or trade agreements on democratic reforms.
Classes, cleavages and alliances
Theorists
such as Barrington Moore Jr. argued that the roots of democratization
could be found in the relationship between lords and peasants in
agrarian societies.
Sociologist Barrington Moore Jr., in his influential Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
(1966), argues that the distribution of power among classes – the
peasantry, the bourgeoise and the landed aristocracy – and the nature of
alliances between classes determined whether democratic, authoritarian
or communist revolutions occurred. Moore also argued there were at least "three routes to the modern
world" – the liberal democratic, the fascist, and the communist – each
deriving from the timing of industrialization and the social structure
at the time of transition. Thus, Moore challenged modernization theory,
by stressing that there was not one path to the modern world and that
economic development did not always bring about democracy.
Many authors have questioned parts of Moore's arguments. Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Stephens, and John D. Stephens, in Capitalist Development and Democracy (1992), raise questions about Moore's analysis of the role of the bourgeoisie in democratization. Eva Bellin argues that under certain circumstances, the bourgeoise and
labor are more likely to favor democratization, but less so under other
circumstances. Samuel Valenzuela argues that, counter to Moore's view, the landed elite supported democratization in Chile. A comprehensive assessment conducted by James Mahoney concludes that
"Moore's specific hypotheses about democracy and authoritarianism
receive only limited and highly conditional support."
A 2020 study linked democratization to the mechanization of agriculture: as landed elites became less reliant on the repression of agricultural workers, they became less hostile to democracy.
According to political scientist David Stasavage, representative government is "more likely to occur when a society is divided across multiple political cleavages." A 2021 study found that constitutions that emerge through pluralism
(reflecting distinct segments of society) are more likely to induce
liberal democracy (at least, in the short term).
Political-economic factors
Rulers' need for taxation
Robert Bates
and Donald Lien, as well as David Stasavage, have argued that rulers'
need for taxes gave asset-owning elites the bargaining power to demand a
say on public policy, thus giving rise to democratic institutions. Montesquieu
argued that the mobility of commerce meant that rulers had to bargain
with merchants in order to tax them, otherwise they would leave the
country or hide their commercial activities. Stasavage argues that the small size and backwardness of European
states, as well as the weakness of European rulers, after the fall of
the Roman Empire meant that European rulers had to obtain consent from
their population to govern effectively.
According to Clark, Golder, and Golder, an application of Albert O. Hirschman's
exit, voice, and loyalty model is that if individuals have plausible
exit options, then a government may be more likely to democratize. James C. Scott argues that governments may find it difficult to claim a sovereignty over a population when that population is in motion. Scott additionally asserts that exit may not solely include physical
exit from the territory of a coercive state, but can include a number of
adaptive responses to coercion that make it more difficult for states
to claim sovereignty over a population. These responses can include
planting crops that are more difficult for states to count, or tending
livestock that are more mobile. In fact, the entire political
arrangement of a state is a result of individuals adapting to the
environment, and making a choice as to whether or not to stay in a
territory. If people are free to move, then the exit, voice, and loyalty model
predicts that a state will have to be of that population representative,
and appease the populace in order to prevent them from leaving. If individuals have plausible exit options then they are better able to
constrain a government's arbitrary behaviour through threat of exit.
Inequality and democracy
Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson argued that the relationship between social equality and democratic transition is complicated: People have less incentive to revolt in an egalitarian society (for example, Singapore), so the likelihood of democratization is lower. In a highly unequal society (for example, South Africa under Apartheid), the redistribution of wealth
and power in a democracy would be so harmful to elites that these would
do everything to prevent democratization. Democratization is more
likely to emerge somewhere in the middle, in the countries, whose elites
offer concessions because (1) they consider the threat of a revolution
credible and (2) the cost of the concessions is not too high. This expectation is in line with the empirical research showing that democracy is more stable in egalitarian societies.
In their 2019 book The Narrow Corridor and a 2022 study in the American Political Science Review,
Acemoglu and Robinson argue that the nature of the relationship between
elites and society determine whether stable democracy emerges. When
elites are overly dominant, despotic states emerge. When society is
overly dominant, weak states emerge. When elites and society are evenly
balance, inclusive states emerge.
Natural resources
The abundance of oil is sometimes seen as a curse.
Research shows that oil wealth lowers levels of democracy and strengthens autocratic rule. According to Michael Ross, petroleum
is the sole resource that has "been consistently correlated with less
democracy and worse institutions" and is the "key variable in the vast
majority of the studies" identifying some type of resource curse effect. A 2014 meta-analysis confirms the negative impact of oil wealth on democratization.
Thad Dunning proposes a plausible explanation for Ecuador's
return to democracy that contradicts the conventional wisdom that
natural resource rents encourage authoritarian governments. Dunning
proposes that there are situations where natural resource rents, such as
those acquired through oil, reduce the risk of distributive or social
policies to the elite because the state has other sources of revenue to
finance this kind of policies that is not the elite wealth or income. And in countries plagued with high inequality, which was the case of
Ecuador in the 1970s, the result would be a higher likelihood of
democratization. In 1972, the military coup had overthrown the government in large part
because of the fears of elites that redistribution would take place. That same year oil became an increasing financial source for the country. Although the rents were used to finance the military, the eventual
second oil boom of 1979 ran parallel to the country's
re-democratization. Ecuador's re-democratization can then be attributed, as argued by
Dunning, to the large increase of oil rents, which enabled not only a
surge in public spending but placated the fears of redistribution that
had grappled the elite circles. The exploitation of Ecuador's resource rent enabled the government to
implement price and wage policies that benefited citizens at no cost to
the elite and allowed for a smooth transition and growth of democratic
institutions.
The thesis that oil and other natural resources have a negative impact on democracy has been challenged by historian Stephen Haber and political scientist Victor Menaldo in a widely cited article in the American Political Science Review
(2011). Haber and Menaldo argue that "natural resource reliance is not
an exogenous variable" and find that when tests of the relationship
between natural resources and democracy take this point into account
"increases in resource reliance are not associated with
authoritarianism."
Cultural factors
Values and religion
It
is claimed by some that certain cultures are simply more conducive to
democratic values than others. This view is likely to be ethnocentric. Typically, it is Western culture
which is cited as "best suited" to democracy, with other cultures
portrayed as containing values which make democracy difficult or
undesirable. This argument is sometimes used by undemocratic regimes to
justify their failure to implement democratic reforms. Today, however,
there are many non-Western democracies. Examples include India, Japan,
Indonesia, Namibia, Botswana, Taiwan, and South Korea. Research finds
that "Western-educated leaders significantly and substantively improve a
country's democratization prospects".
Huntington presented an influential, but also controversial
arguments about Confucianism and Islam. Huntington held that "In
practice Confucian or Confucian-influenced societies have been
inhospitable to democracy." He also held that "Islamic doctrine ... contains elements that may be
both congenial and uncongenial to democracy," but generally thought that
Islam was an obstacle to democratization. In contrast, Alfred Stepan was more optimistic about the compatibility of different religions and democracy.
The
compatibility of Islam and democracy continues to be a focus of
discussion; the image depicts a mosque in Medina, Saudi Arabia.
Steven Fish and Robert Barro have linked Islam to undemocratic outcomes. However, Michael Ross argues that the lack of democracies in some parts
of the Muslim world has more to do with the adverse effects of the
resource curse than Islam. Lisa Blaydes and Eric Chaney have linked the democratic divergence between the West and the Middle-East to the reliance on mamluks
(slave soldiers) by Muslim rulers whereas European rulers had to rely
on local elites for military forces, thus giving those elites bargaining
power to push for representative government.
Robert Dahl argued, in On Democracy, that countries with a "democratic political culture" were more prone for democratization and democratic survival. He also argued that cultural homogeneity and smallness contribute to democratic survival. Other scholars have however challenged the notion that small states and homogeneity strengthen democracy.
A 2012 study found that areas in Africa with Protestant missionaries were more likely to become stable democracies. A 2020 study failed to replicate those findings.
Sirianne Dahlum and Carl Henrik Knutsen offer a test of the
Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel revised version of modernization
theory, which focuses on cultural traits triggered by economic
development that are presumed to be conducive to democratization. They find "no empirical support" for the Inglehart and Welzel thesis
and conclude that "self-expression values do not enhance democracy
levels or democratization chances, and neither do they stabilize
existing democracies."
Education
It has long been theorized that education promotes stable and democratic societies. Research shows that education leads to greater political tolerance,
increases the likelihood of political participation and reduces
inequality. One study finds "that increases in levels of education improve levels
of democracy and that the democratizing effect of education is more
intense in poor countries".
It is commonly claimed that democracy and democratization were
important drivers of the expansion of primary education around the
world. However, new evidence from historical education trends challenges
this assertion. An analysis of historical student enrollment rates for
109 countries from 1820 to 2010 finds no support for the claim that
democratization increased access to primary education around the world.
It is true that transitions to democracy often coincided with an
acceleration in the expansion of primary education, but the same
acceleration was observed in countries that remained non-democratic.
Civil society
refers to a collection of non-governmental organizations and
institutions that advance the interests, priorities and will of
citizens. Social capital
refers to features of social life—networks, norms, and trust—that allow
individuals to act together to pursue shared objectives.
Robert Putnam
argues that certain characteristics make societies more likely to have
cultures of civic engagement that lead to more participatory
democracies. According to Putnam, communities with denser horizontal
networks of civic association
are able to better build the "norms of trust, reciprocity, and civic
engagement" that lead to democratization and well-functioning
participatory democracies. By contrasting communities in Northern Italy,
which had dense horizontal networks, to communities in Southern Italy,
which had more vertical networks and patron-client relations,
Putnam asserts that the latter never built the culture of civic
engagement that some deem as necessary for successful democratization.
Sheri Berman
has rebutted Putnam's theory that civil society contributes to
democratization, writing that in the case of the Weimar Republic, civil
society facilitated the rise of the Nazi Party. According to Berman, Germany's democratization after World War I
allowed for a renewed development in the country's civil society;
however, Berman argues that this vibrant civil society eventually
weakened democracy within Germany as it exacerbated existing social
divisions due to the creation of exclusionary community organizations. Subsequent empirical research and theoretical analysis has lent support for Berman's argument. Yale University political scientist Daniel Mattingly argues civil
society in China helps the authoritarian regime in China to cement
control. Clark, M. Golder, and S. Golder also argue that despite many believing democratization requires a civic culture, empirical evidence produced by several reanalyses of past studies suggest this claim is only partially supported. Philippe C. Schmitter
also asserts that the existence of civil society is not a prerequisite
for the transition to democracy, but rather democratization is usually
followed by the resurrection of civil society (even if it did not exist
previously).
Research indicates that democracy protests are associated with
democratization. According to a study by Freedom House, in 67 countries
where dictatorships have fallen since 1972, nonviolent civic resistance
was a strong influence over 70 percent of the time. In these
transitions, changes were catalyzed not through foreign invasion, and
only rarely through armed revolt or voluntary elite-driven reforms, but
overwhelmingly by democratic civil society organizations utilizing
nonviolent action and other forms of civil resistance, such as strikes,
boycotts, civil disobedience, and mass protests. A 2016 study found that about a quarter of all cases of democracy protests between 1989 and 2011 lead to democratization.
Theories based on political agents and choices
Elite-opposition negotiations and contingency
Scholars such as Dankwart A. Rustow, Guillermo O'Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter in their classic Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (1986), argued against the notion that there are structural "big" causes of
democratization. These scholars instead emphasize how the
democratization process occurs in a more contingent manner that depends
on the characteristics and circumstances of the elites who ultimately
oversee the shift from authoritarianism to democracy.
O'Donnell and Schmitter proposed a strategic choice approach to
transitions to democracy that highlighted how they were driven by the
decisions of different actors in response to a core set of dilemmas. The
analysis centered on the interaction among four actors: the hard-liners
and soft-liners who belonged to the incumbent authoritarian regime, and
the moderate and radical oppositions against the regime. This book not
only became the point of reference for a burgeoning academic literature
on democratic transitions, it was also read widely by political activists engaged in actual struggles to achieve democracy.
Adam Przeworski, in Democracy and the Market (1991),
offered the first analysis of the interaction between rulers and
opposition in transitions to democracy using rudimentary game theory. and he emphasizes the interdependence of political and economic transformations.
Elite-driven democratization
Scholars
have argued that processes of democratization may be elite-driven or
driven by the authoritarian incumbents as a way for those elites to
retain power amid popular demands for representative government. If the costs of repression are higher than the costs of giving away
power, authoritarians may opt for democratization and inclusive
institutions. According to a 2020 study, authoritarian-led democratization is more
likely to lead to lasting democracy in cases when the party strength of
the authoritarian incumbent is high. However, Michael Albertus and Victor Menaldo argue that democratizing
rules implemented by outgoing authoritarians may distort democracy in
favor of the outgoing authoritarian regime and its supporters, resulting
in "bad" institutions that are hard to get rid of. According to Michael K. Miller, elite-driven democratization is
particularly likely in the wake of major violent shocks (either domestic
or international) which provide openings to opposition actors to the
authoritarian regime. Dan Slater and Joseph Wong argue that dictators in Asia chose to
implement democratic reforms when they were in positions of strength in
order to retain and revitalize their power.
According to a study by political scientist Daniel Treisman,
influential theories of democratization posit that autocrats
"deliberately choose to share or surrender power. They do so to prevent
revolution, motivate citizens to fight wars, incentivize governments to
provide public goods,
outbid elite rivals, or limit factional violence." His study shows that
in many cases, "democratization occurred not because incumbent elites
chose it but because, in trying to prevent it, they made mistakes that
weakened their hold on power. Common mistakes include: calling elections
or starting military conflicts, only to lose them; ignoring popular
unrest and being overthrown; initiating limited reforms that get out of
hand; and selecting a covert democrat as leader. These mistakes reflect
well-known cognitive biases such as overconfidence and the illusion of control."
Sharun Mukand and Dani Rodrik
dispute that elite-driven democratization produce liberal democracy.
They argue that low levels of inequality and weak identity cleavages are
necessary for liberal democracy to emerge. A 2020 study by several political scientists from German universities
found that democratization through bottom-up peaceful protests led to
higher levels of democracy and democratic stability than democratization
prompted by elites.
The three dictatorship types, monarchy, civilian and military
have different approaches to democratization as a result of their
individual goals. Monarchic and civilian dictatorships seek to remain in
power indefinitely through hereditary rule in the case of monarchs or
through oppression in the case of civilian dictators. A military
dictatorship seizes power to act as a caretaker government to replace
what they consider a flawed civilian government. Military dictatorships
are more likely to transition to democracy because at the onset, they
are meant to be stop-gap solutions while a new acceptable government
forms.
Research suggests that the threat of civil conflict encourages
regimes to make democratic concessions. A 2016 study found that
drought-induced riots in Sub-Saharan Africa lead regimes, fearing
conflict, to make democratic concessions.
Scrambled constituencies
Mancur Olson
theorizes that the process of democratization occurs when elites are
unable to reconstitute an autocracy. Olson suggests that this occurs
when constituencies or identity groups are mixed within a geographic
region. He asserts that this mixed geographic constituencies requires
elites to for democratic and representative institutions to control the
region, and to limit the power of competing elite groups.
Death or ouster of dictator
One
analysis found that "Compared with other forms of leadership turnover
in autocracies—such as coups, elections, or term limits—which lead to
regime collapse about half of the time, the death of a dictator is
remarkably inconsequential. ... of the 79 dictators who have died in
office (1946–2014)... in the vast majority (92%) of cases, the regime
persists after the autocrat's death."
Women's suffrage
One of the critiques of Huntington's periodization is that it doesn't give enough weight to universal suffrage. Pamela Paxton argues that once women's suffrage is taken into account,
the data reveal "a long, continuous democratization period from
1893–1958, with only war-related reversals."
International factors
War and national security
Jeffrey Herbst,
in his paper "War and the State in Africa" (1990), explains how
democratization in European states was achieved through political
development fostered by war-making and these "lessons from the case of
Europe show that war is an important cause of state formation that is missing in Africa today." Herbst writes that war and the threat of invasion by neighbors caused
European state to more efficiently collect revenue, forced leaders to
improve administrative capabilities, and fostered state unification and a
sense of national identity (a common, powerful association between the
state and its citizens). Herbst writes that in Africa and elsewhere in the non-European world
"states are developing in a fundamentally new environment" because they
mostly "gained Independence without having to resort to combat and have
not faced a security threat since independence." Herbst notes that the strongest non-European states, South Korea and Taiwan, are "largely 'warfare' states that have been molded, in part, by the near constant threat of external aggression."
Elizabeth Kier has challenged claims that total war prompts
democratization, showing in the cases of the UK and Italy during World
War I that the policies adopted by the Italian government prompted a
fascist backlash whereas UK government policies towards labor undermined
broader democratization.
Two
British Marine Commandos take protection behind debris during the
capture of Walcheren Island during World War II. The link between war
and democratization has been a focus of some theories.
Wars may contribute to the state-building that precedes a transition to democracy, but war is mainly a serious obstacle to democratization. While adherents of the democratic peace theory believe that democracy causes peace, the territorial peace theory makes the opposite claim that peace causes democracy. In fact, war and territorial threats to a country are likely to increase authoritarianism
and lead to autocracy.
This is supported by historical evidence showing that in almost all
cases, peace has come before democracy. A number of scholars have argued
that there is little support for the hypothesis that democracy causes
peace, but strong evidence for the opposite hypothesis that peace leads
to democracy.
Christian Welzel'shuman empowerment theory posits that existential security leads to emancipative cultural values and support for a democratic political organization. This is in agreement with theories based on evolutionary psychology. The so-called regality theory finds that people develop a psychological preference for a strong leader and an authoritarian form of government in situations of war or perceived collective danger. On the other hand, people will support egalitarian
values and a preference for democracy in situations of peace and
safety. The consequence of this is that a society will develop in the
direction of autocracy
and an authoritarian government when people perceive collective danger,
while the development in the democratic direction requires collective
safety.
International institutions
A number of studies have found that international institutions have helped facilitate democratization. Thomas Risse wrote in 2009, "there is a consensus in the literature on Eastern Europe that the EU membership perspective had a huge anchoring effects for the new democracies." Scholars have also linked NATO expansion with playing a role in democratization. international forces can significantly affect democratization. Global
forces like the diffusion of democratic ideas and pressure from
international financial institutions to democratize have led to
democratization.
The European Union has contributed to the spread of democracy, in
particular by encouraging democratic reforms in aspiring member states. Thomas Risse
wrote in 2009, "there is a consensus in the literature on Eastern
Europe that the EU membership perspective had a huge anchoring effects
for the new democracies."
Steven Levitsky
and Lucan Way have argued that close ties to the West increased the
likelihood of democratization after the end of the Cold War, whereas
states with weak ties to the West adopted competitive authoritarian regimes.
A 2002 study found that membership in regional organizations "is correlated with transitions to democracy during the period from 1950 to 1992."
A 2004 study found no evidence that foreign aid led to democratization.
Democracies have sometimes been imposed by military intervention, for example in Japan and Germanyafter World War II. In other cases, decolonization
sometimes facilitated the establishment of democracies that were soon
replaced by authoritarian regimes. For example, Syria, after gaining
independence from French mandatory control at the beginning of the Cold War, failed to consolidate its democracy, so it eventually collapsed and was replaced by a Ba'athist dictatorship.
Robert Dahl argued in On Democracy that foreign
interventions contributed to democratic failures, citing Soviet
interventions in Central and Eastern Europe and U.S. interventions in
Latin America. However, the delegitimization of empires contributed to the emergence
of democracy as former colonies gained independence and implemented
democracy.
Geographic factors
Some
scholars link the emergence and sustenance of democracies to areas with
access to the sea, which tends to increase the mobility of people,
goods, capital, and ideas.
Historical factors
Historical legacies
In seeking to explain why North America developed stable democracies and Latin America did not, Seymour Martin Lipset, in The Democratic Century
(2004), holds that the reason is that the initial patterns of
colonization, the subsequent process of economic incorporation of the
new colonies, and the wars of independence differ. The divergent
histories of Britain and Iberia are seen as creating different cultural
legacies that affected the prospects of democracy. A related argument is presented by James A. Robinson in "Critical Junctures and Developmental Paths" (2022).
Sequencing and causality
Scholars
have discussed whether the order in which things happen helps or
hinders the process of democratization. An early discussion occurred in
the 1960s and 1970s. Dankwart Rustow argued that "'the most effective
sequence' is the pursuit of national unity, government authority, and
political equality, in that order." Eric Nordlinger and Samuel Huntington stressed "the importance of
developing effective governmental institutions before the emergence of
mass participation in politics." Robert Dahl, in Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition
(1971), held that the "commonest sequence among the older and more
stable polyarchies has been some approximation of the ... path [in
which] competitive politics preceded expansion in participation."
In the 2010s, the discussion focused on the impact of the sequencing between state building and democratization. Francis Fukuyama, in Political Order and Political Decay
(2014), echoes Huntington's "state-first" argument and holds that those
"countries in which democracy preceded modern state-building have had
much greater problems achieving high-quality governance." This view has been supported by Sheri Berman,
who offers a sweeping overview of European history and concludes that
"sequencing matters" and that "without strong states...liberal democracy
is difficult if not impossible to achieve."
However, this state-first thesis has been challenged. Relying on a
comparison of Denmark and Greece, and quantitative research on 180
countries across 1789–2019, Haakon Gjerløw, Carl Henrik Knutsen, Tore
Wig, and Matthew C. Wilson, in One Road to Riches? (2022), "find little evidence to support the stateness-first argument." Based on a comparison of European and Latin American countries, Sebastián Mazzuca and Gerardo Munck, in A Middle-Quality Institutional Trap
(2021), argue that counter to the state-first thesis, the "starting
point of political developments is less important than whether the
State–democracy relationship is a virtuous cycle, triggering causal
mechanisms that reinforce each."
In sequences of democratization for many countries, Morrison et
al. found elections as the most frequent first element of the sequence
of democratization but found this ordering does not necessarily predict
successful democratization.
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