Political Sociology: Cultural Prerequisites for a Successfully Functioning Democracy - Pro, Apuntes de Derecho Penal

¡Descarga Political Sociology: Cultural Prerequisites for a Successfully Functioning Democracy - Pro y más Apuntes en PDF de Derecho Penal solo en Docsity! Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy Seymour Martin Lipset The American Political Science Review, Vol. 53, No. 1. (Mar., 1959), pp. 69-105. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-0554%28195903%2953%3A1%3C69%3ASSRODE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-D The American Political Science Review is currently published by American Political Science Association. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/journals/apsa.html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. http://www.jstor.org Wed Apr 25 21:50:10 2007 SOLME SOCIAL REQUISITES OF DEMOCRACY: ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND POLITICAL LEGITI1\lACY1 SEYMOUR MARTIN LIPSET University of California, Berkeley The conditions associated with the existence and stability of democratic society have been a leading concern of political philosophy. I n this paper the problem is attacked from a sociological and behavioral standpoint, by present- ing a number of hypotheses concerning some social requisites for democracy, and by discussing some of the data available to test these hypotheses. In its concern with conditions-values, social institutions, historical events-external to the political system itself which sustain different general types of political systems, the paper moves outside the generally recognized province of political sociology. This growing field has dealt largely with the internal analysis of or- ganizations with political goals, or with the determinants of action within vari- ous political institutions, such as parties, government agencies, or the electoral p r o ~ e s s . ~I t has in the main left to the political philosopher the larger concern with the relations of the total political system to society as a whole. I. INTRODUCTION A sociological analysis of any pattern of behavior, whether referring to a small or a large social system, must result in specific hypotheses, empirically testable statements. Thus, in dealing with democracy, one must be able to point to a set of conditions that have actually existed in a number of countries, and say: democracy has emerged out of these conditions, and has become stabil- ized because of certain supporting institutions and values, as well as because of its own internal self-maintaining processes. The conditions listed must be ones which differentiate most democratic states from most others. A recent discussion by a group of political theorists on the "cultural pre- requisites to a successfully functioning democracy" points up the difference between the approach of the political sociologist and the political philosopher to a comparable p r ~ b l e m . ~ A considerable portion of this symposium is devoted This paper was written as one aspect of a comparative analysis of political behavior in western democracies which is supported by grants from the Behavioral Sciences Di- vision of the Ford Foundation and the Committee on Comparative Politics of the Social Science Research Council. Assistance from Robert Alford and Amitai Etzioni is gratefully acknowledged. I t was originally presented a t the September 1958 meetings of the Ameri- can Political Science Association in St. Louis, Missouri. See my "Political Sociology, 1945-1955," in Hans L. Zetterberg, ed., Sociology in the U S A (Paris: USESCO, 1956), pp. 45-55, for a summary of the various areas covered by political sociology. For a discussion of intellectual trends in political sociology and the rationale underlying a focus on the problem of democracy, see my "Political Sociology," in R . K. Merton, et al., eds., Sociology Today (New York: Basic Books, 1959), ch. 3. Ernest S. Griffith, John Plamenatz, and J. Roland Pennock, "Cultural Prerequisites t o a Successfully Functioning Democracy: A Symposium," this REVIEW, Vo1. 50 (1956), pp. 101-137. 72 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW No detailed examination of the political history of individual countries will be undertaken in accordance mith the generic definition, since the relative de- gree or social content of democracy in different countries is not the real prob- lem of this paper. Certain problems of method in the handling of relationships between complex characteristics of total societies do merit brief discussion, however. An extremely high correlation between aspects of social structure, such as income, education, religion, on the one hand, and democracy, on the other, is not to be anticipated even on theoretical grounds, because to the extent that the political sub-system of the society operates autonomously, a particular political form may persist under conditions normally adverse to the emergence of that form. Or, a political form may develop because of a syndrome of fairly unique historical factors, even though major social characteristics favor another form. Germany is an example of a nation in which the structural changes- growing industralization, urbanization, wealth, and education-all favored the establishment of a democratic system, but in which a series of adverse historical events prevented democracy from securing legitimacy in the eyes of many important segments of society, and thus weakened German democracy's abil- ity to withstand crisis. The high correlations which appear in the data to be presented between democracy and other institutional characteristics of societies must not be overly stressed, since unique events may account for either the persistence or the failure of democracy in any particular society. Max TVeber argued strongly that differences in national patterns often reflect key historical events which set one process in motion in one country, and a second process in another. To illustrate his point, he used the analogy of a dice game in mhich each time the dice came up mith a certain number they mere increasingly loaded in the direc- tion of coming up mith that number again.6 To Weber, an event predisposing a country toward democracy sets a process in motion mhich increases the likeli- hood that a t the next critical point in the country's history democracy mill win out again. This process can only have meaning if we assume that once estab- lished, a democratic political system gathers some momentum, and creates some social supports (institutions) to ensure its continued existence. Thus a "premature" democracy mhich survives mill do so by (among other things) facilitating the growth of other conditions conducive to democracy, such as universal literacy, or autonomous private associations. This paper is primarily concerned with explicating the social conditions which serve to support a demo- cratic political system, such as education or legitimacy; i t mill not deal in detail mith the kinds of internal mechanisms which serve to mainta in democratic sys- tems such as the specific rules of the political game.? Max Weber, The Methodology ofthe Social Sciences, (Glencoe: The Free Prese, 1949)1 pp. 182-185; see also S. M. Lipset, "A Sociologist Looks a t History," Pacific Sociological Review, Vol. 1 (Spring 1958), pp. 13-17. See Morris Janowitz and Dwaine Marvick, Competitive Pressure and Democratic Consent, Michigan Governmental Studies, no. 32 (Bureau of Government, Institute of 73 SOME SOCIAL REQUISITES O F DEMOCRACY Comparative generalizations dealing with complex social systems must neces- sarily deal rather summarily with particular historical features of any one society within the scope of the investigation. In order to test these generaliza- tions bearing on the differences between countries which rank high or low in possession of the attributes associated with democracy, i t is necessary to estab- lish some empirical measures of the type of political system. Individual devi- ations from a particular aspect of democracy are not too important, as long as the definitions unambiguously cover the great majority of nations which are located as democratic or undemocratic. The precise dividing line between ''more democratic" and "less democratic" is also not a basic problem, since presumably democracy is not a quality of a social system which either does or does not exist, but is rather a complex of characteristics which may be ranked in many different mays. For this reason i t \\,as decided to divide the countries under consideratioii into two groups, rather than to attempt to rank them from highest to lowest. Ranking i nd iv idua l countries from the most to the least democratic is much more difficult than splittiiig the couiltries into two classes, "more" or "less" democratic, although even here borderline cases such as Mexico pose problems. Efforts to classify all countries raise a number of problems. Most countries which lack an enduring tradition of political democracy lie in the traditionally underdeveloped sections of the world. It is possible that ;\lax Weber mas right when he suggested that modern democracy in its clearest forms can only occur under the unique conditions of capitalist indu~trialization.~ Some of the com- plications introduced by the sharp variations in political practices in different parts of the earth can be reduced by dealing with differences among countries within political culture areas. The two best areas for such internal comparison are Latin America as one, and Europe and the English-speaking countries as the other. More limited comparisons may be made among the Asian states, and among the Arab countries. The main criteria used in this paper to locate European democracies are the uninterrupted continuation of political democracy since World War I, a n d the absence over the past 25 years of a major political movement opposed to the democratic "rules of the game."g The somex~-hat less stringent criterion em- ployed for Latin America is whether a given country has had a history of more Public Administration, University of Michigan, 1956),and Robert A. Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory, (University of Chicago, 1956),esp. pp. 90-123, for recent systematic efforts to specify some of the internal mechanisms of democracy. See David Easton, "An Apprcsch to the Analysis of Political Systems," World Politics, Vol. 9 (1957), pp. 383- 400, for discussion of problems of internal analysis of political systems. See Max Weber, "Zur Lage der burgerlichen Demokratie in Russland," Archiv fur Sozicslwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, Vol. 22 (1906),pp. 346 ff. The latter requirement means that no totalitarian movement, either Fascist or Com- munist, received 20 per cent of the vote during this time. Actually all the European na- tions falling on the democratic side of the continuum had totalitarian movements which secured less than seven per cent of the vote. 74 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW or less free elections for most of the post-World War I period. Where in Europe we look for stable democracies, in South America me look for countries which have not had fairly constant dictatorial rule (See Table I). KO detailed analysis of the political history of either Europe or Latin America has been made with an eye toward more specific criteria of differentiation; a t this point in the ex- amination of the requisites of democracy, election results are sufficient to locate the European couiztries, and the judgments of experts and iinpressionistic assessments based on fairly well-known facts of political history will suffice for Latin America.lo TABLE I. CLASSIFICATIOX O F EUROPEAN, ENGLISH-SPEAKINQA N D LATIN A M E R I C A N NATIOKS BY DEGREE O F STABLE DEMOCRACY European and Englislb-speaking N a t i o n s L a t i n Amer ican N a t i o n s Unstable Democracies Stable Stable Democracies and and Unstable Democracies Dictatorships Dictatorships Dictatorships Australia Austria Argentina Bolivia Belgium Bulgaria Brazil Cuba Canada Czechoslovakia Chile Dominican Republic Denmark Finland Colombia Ecuador Ireland France Costa Rica El Salvador Luxemburg Germany (\Vest) RIexico Guatemala Netherlands Greece Uruguay Haiti New Zealand Hungary Honduras Norway Iceland Nicaragua Sweden Italy Panama Switzerland Poland Paraguay United Kingdom Portugal Peru United States Rumania Venezuela Spain Yugoslavia l o The historian Arthur P. Whitaker, for example, has summarized the judgments of experts on Latin America to be that "the countries which have approximated most closely to the democratic ideal have been . . . Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Uruguay." See "The Pathology of Democracy in Latin America: A Historian's Point of View," this REVIEW, Vo1. 44 (1950), pp. 101-118. To this group I have added Mexico. hlexico has allolved freedom of the press, of assembly and of organization, to opposition parties, although there is good evidence that it does not allow them the oppor- tunity to win elections, since ballots are counted by the incumbents. The existence of opposition groups, contested elections, and adjustments among the various factions of the governing Part ido Revolucionario Institutional does introduce a considerable element of popular influence in the system. The interesting effort of Russell Fitzgibbon to secure a "statistical evaluation of Latin American democracy" based on the opinion of various experts is not useful for the purposes of this paper. The judges were asked not only to rank countries as democratic on the basis of purely political criteria, but also to consider the "standard of living" and "educational level." These latter factors may be conditions for democracy, but they are not an aspect of democracy as such. See Russell H. Fitzgibbon, "A Statistical Evaluation of Latin Ameri- can Democracy," Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 9 (1956), pp. 607-619. - -- S O M E SOCIAL R E Q U I S I T E S O F DEMOCRACY D. Indices of Urbanization Per Cent in Per Cent in Per Cent in Means Cities over Cities over Metropolitan ~ O , O O O ~ ~ 1 0 0 , 0 0 0 ~ Areas16 European Stable Democracies 43 28 38 European Dictatorships 24 16 23 Latin American Democracies 28 22 26 Latin American Stable Dictatorships 17 12 15 Ranges European Stable Democracies 28-54 17-51 22-56 European Dictatorships 12-44 6-33 7-49 Latin American Democracies 11-48 13--37 1 7 4 4 Latin American Stable Dictatorships 5-36 4-22 7-26 ~p 1 A large part of this table has been compiled from data furnished by International Urban Research, University of California, Berkeley, California. United Nations, Statistical Office, National and Per Capita Income in Seventy Countries, 1949, Statistical Papers, Series E, No. 1, New York, 1950, pp. 14-16. a United Nations, A Preliminary Report on the World Social Situation, 1956, Table 11, pp. 46-8. United Nations, Statistical Yearbook, 1056, Table 139, pp. 333-338. 6 Ibid., Table 149, p. 387. fl Ibid., Table 189, p. 641. The population bases for these figures are for different years than those used in report- ing the numbers of telephones and radios, but for purposes of group comparisons, the differences are not important. 7 United Nations, A Preliminary Report . . . , op. cit., Appendix B, pp. 86-89. 8 United Nations, Demographic Yearbook, 1966, Table 12, pp. 350-370. 9 United Nations, Statistical Yearbook, 1966, op. cit., Table 127, pp. 308-310. Figures refer to commercially produced energy, in equivalent numbers of metric tons of coal. 10 United Nations, -4 Preliminary Report . . . , op. eit., Appendix A, pp. 79-86. A number of countries are listed as more than 95 per cent literate. 11 Ibid., pp. 86-100. Figures refer to persons enrolled a t the earlier year of the primary range, per 1,000 total population, for years ranging from 1946 to 1950. The first primary year varies from five to eight in various countries. The less developed countries have more persons in that age range per 1,000 population than the more developed countries, but this biases the figures presented in the direction of increasing the percentage of the total population in school for the less developed countries, although fewer of the children in that age group attend school. The bias from this source thus reinforces the positive relationship between education and democracy. 12 Ibid., pp. 86-100. 18 UNESCO, World Survey of Education, Paris, 1955. Figures are the enrollment in higher education per 1,000 population. The years to which the figures apply vary between 1949 and 1952, and the definition of higher education varies for different countries. 14 Obtained from International Urban Research, University of California, Berkeley, California. '6 Ibid. 10 Ibid. cratic countries. In the less dictatorial Latin American countries there are 99 persons per motor vehicle, as against 274 for the more dictatorial ones .12 Income differences for the groups are also sharp, dropping from an average per capita income of $695 for the more democratic countries of Europe to $308 for the less democratic ones; the corresponding difference for Latin America is from $171 to $119. The ranges are equally consistent, with the lowest per capita income in each group falling in the ((lessdemocratic" category, and the high- est ic the "more democratic" one. l2 I t must be remembered that these figures are means, compiled from census figures for the various countries. The data vary widely in accuracy, and there is no way of meas- uring the validity of compound calculated figures such as those presented here. The con- sistent direction of all these differences, and their large magnitude, is the main indication of validity. 78 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW Industrialization-indices of wealth are clearly related to this, of course- is measured by the percentage of employed males in agriculture, and the per capita commercially produced "energy" being used in the country, measured in terms of tons of coal per person per year. Both of these indices show equally consistent results. The average percentage of employed males working in agri- culture and related occupations was 21 in the "more democratic" European countries, and 41 in the ('less democratic," 52 in the '(less dictatorial" Latin American countries, and 67 in the "more dictatorial." The differences in per capita energy employed in the country are equally large. The degree of urbanization is also related to the existence of democracy.13 Three different indices of urbanization are available from data compiled by International Urban Research (Berkeley, California), the percentage of the population in places of 20,000 and over, the percentage in communities of 100,000 and over, and also the percentage residing in standard metropolitan areas. On all three of these indices of urbanization, the more democratic coun- tries score higher than the less democratic, for both of the political culture areas under investigation. Many have suggested that the better educated the population of a country, the better the chances for democracy, and the comparative data available sup- port this proposition. The "more democratic" countries of Europe are almost entirely literate: the lomrest has a rate of 96 per cent, while the "less democratic" nations have an average literacy rate of 85 per cent. In Latin America, the dif- ference is between an average rate of 74 per cent for the "less dictatorial" countries and 46 per cent for the "more di~tatorial."'~ The educational enroll- " Urbanization has often been linked to democracy by political theorists. Harold J. Laski asserted that "organized democracy is the product of urban life," and that i t was natural therefore that it should have "made its first effective appearance" in the Greek city states, limited as was their definition of "citizen." See his article "Democracy" in the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York: hlacmillan, 1937), Vol. V, pp. 76-85. hlax Weber held that the city, as a certain type of political community, is a peculiarly Western phenomenon, and traced the emergence of the notion of "citizenship" from social develop- ments closely related to urbanization. For a partial statement of his point of view, see the chapter on "Citizenship," in General Economic History (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1950), pp. 315-338. I t is significant to note that before 1933 the Nazi electoral strength was great- est in small communities and rural areas. Berlin, the only German city of over two million, never gave the Nazis over 25 per cent of the vote in a free election. The modal Nazi, like the modal French Poujadist or Italian neo-Fascist today, was a self-employed resident of a small town or rural district. Though the communists, as a workers' party, are strongest in the working-class neighborhoods of large cities within countries, they have great elec- toral strength only in the less urbanized European nations, e.g., Greece, Finland, France, Italy. 14 The pattern indicated by a comparison of the averages for each group of countries is sustained by the ranges (the high and low extremes) for each index. hlost of the ranges overlap, that is, some countries which are in the low category with regard to politics are higher on any given index than some which are high on the scale of democracy. I t is note- worthy that in both Europe and Latin America, the nations which are lowest on any of the indices presented in the table are also in the "less democraticJJ category. Conversely, al- most all countries which rank a t the top of any of the indices are in the "more demo- cratic" class. 79 SOhlE SOCIAL REQUISITES O F DEMOCRACY ment per thousand total population a t three different levels, primary, post- primary, and higher educational, is equally consistently related to the degree of democracy. The tremeldous disparity is shown bj the extreme cases of IIaiti and the United States. Iiaiti ha,s fewer children (11 per thousand) attending school in the primary grades than the Uiiitecl States has attending colleges (almost 18 per thousand). The relationship between education and democracy is i~-ortln more extensive treatment since an entire philosophy of democratic governme~lt has seen in increased education the spread of the basic requirement of democracy.16 As Bryce wrote with special reference to Latin America, "education, if it does not make men good citizens, makes it a t least easier for them to become so."16 Education presumably broadens men's outlooks, enables them to understand the need for norms of tolerance, restrains them from adhering to extremist and monistic doctrines, and increases their capacity to make rational electoral choices. The evidence bearing on the contributioll of education to democracy is even more direct and strong in connection with individual behavior w i t h i n countrics, than i t is in cross-national correlations. Data gathered by public opinion re- search agencies which have questioned people in different countries with regard to their belicf in various democratic norms of tolerance for opposition, to their attitudes toward ethnic or racial minorities, and with regard to their belief in multi-party as against one-party systems have found that the ?nost important single factor di$ei.entiating those giving democratic responses from others has been education. The higher one's education, the more likely one is to believe in demo- cratic values and support democratic practices.17 All the relevai~t studies indi- cate that education is far more significant than income or occupation. These findings silould lead us to anticipate a far higher correlation between national levels of education and political practice than in fact we do -find. Germany and France have been among the best educated nations of Europe, but this by itself clearly did not stabilize their democracies. I t may be, how- ever, that education has served to inhibit other anti-democratic forces. Post- Nazi data from Germany indicate clearly that higher education is linked to rejection of strong-man and one-party govcrnment.18 See John Dewey, Democracy and Education (New York, 1916). '6 Quoted in Arthur P. Whitaker, op. cit., p. 112; see also Karl blannheim, Freedom, Power and Democratic Planni7lg (n'ew York, 1950). 17 See C. H. Smith, "Liberalism and Level of Information," Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 39 (1948), pp. 65-82; Martin A. Trow, Right Wing Radicalism and Politi- cal Itltolerance, Ph.l). dissertation, Columbia University, 1957, p. 17; Samuel StouRer, Communisnt, Conformity and C i ~ i l Liberties (New York, 1955)) pp. 138-9; I<.Kido and A I . Suyi, "Report on Social Stratification and Mobility in Tokyo, . . . Mobility in Tokyo, 111: The Structure of Social Consciousness," Japanese Sociological Review (January 1954), pp. 74-100. l8 Den-ey has suggested that the character of the educational system will influence its effect on democracy, and this may shed some light on the sources of instability in Ger- many. The purpose of German education, according to Dewey, writing in 1916, was "disciplinary training rather than . . . personal development." The main aim was to pro- 82 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW become circular and to accelerate social disorganization," political as well as economic.25 Lerner introduces one important theoretical addition, the suggestion that these key variables in the modernization process may be viewed as historical phases, with democracy a part of later developments, the "crowning institutioi~ of the participant society," one of his terms for a modern industrial society. His view on the relations between these variables, seen as stages, is worth quoting a t some length: The secular evolution of a participant society appears to involve a regular sequence of three phases. Urbanization comes first, for cities alone have developed the complex of kills and resources which characterize the modern industrial economy. Within this urban matrix develop both of the attributes which distingui~h the nest two phases-literacy and media growth. There is a close reciprocal relationship between these, for the literate develop the media which in turn spread literacy. Eut, literacy perforn~s the key function in the second phase. The capacity to read, a t first acquired by relatively few people, equips them to perform the varied tasks required in the modernizing society. Not until the third phase, when the elaborate technology of industrial development is fairly well advanced, does a society begin to produce newspapers, radio network^, and motion pictures on a massive scale. This in turn, accelerates the spread of literacy. Out of this interaction de- velop those institutions of participation (e.g., voting) which are find in all advanced modern societie~.~6 Lerner's thesis concerning the functional interdependence of these elements of modernization is by no means established by his data, but the material pre- sented in this paper offers an opportunitjr for research along these lines. Devi- 26 Ibid., pp. 87-89. Other theories of underdeveloped areas have also stressed the circu- lar character of the forces sustaining a given level of economic and social development; and in a sense this paper may be regarded as an effort to estcnd the analysis of the com- plex of institutions constituting a "modernized" society to the political sphere. Leo Schnore's unpublished monograph, Econotnic Developm~nt and Urbanization, An Ecological Approaci~, relates technological, demographic and organizational (including literacy and per capita income) variables as an interdependent complex. Harvey Leibenstein's recent volume, Economic Baclcwardness and Econotnic Growth (New York, 1957), views "under- development" within the framework of a "quasi-equilibrium" economic theory, as a complex of associated and mutually supportive aspects of a society, and includes cultural and political characteristics-illiteracy, the lack of a middle class, a crude communications system-as part of the complex. (See pp. 39-41). 26 Ibid., p. 60. Lerner also focuses upon certain personality requirements of a "modern" society n hich may also be related to the personality requirements of democracy. According to him, the physical and social mobility of modern society requires a mobile personality, capable of adaptation to rapid change. Development of a "mobile sensibility so adaptive to change that rearrangement of the self-system is its distinctive mode" has been the work of the 20th century. I t s main feature is empathy, denoting the "general capacity to see oneself in the other fcllow's situation, whether favorably or unfavorably." (p. 49 ff.) Whether this psychological characteristic results in a predisposition toward democracy (implying a willingness to accept the viewpoint of others) or is rather associated with the anti-democratic tendencies of a "mass society" type of personality (implying the lack of any solid personal values rooted in rewarding participation) is an open question. Possibly empathy, a more or less "cosmopolitan" outlook, is a general personality characteristic of modern societies, with other special conditions determining whether or not it has the social consequence of tolerance and democratic attitudes, or rootlessness and anomie. SOME SOCIAL REQUISITES OF DEMOCRACY 83 ant cases, such as Egypt, where "lagging" literacy is associated with serious strains and potential upheaval, may also be found in Europe and in Latin America, and their analysis, a task not attempted here, will clarify further the basic dynamics of modernization, and the problem of social stability in the midst of institutional change. A number of processes underlie these correlations, observed in many areas of the world, in addition to the effect, already discussed, of a high level of education and literacy in creating or sustaining belief in democratic norms. Perhaps most important is the relationship between modernization and the form of the ((class struggle." For the loxver strata, economic development, which means increased income, greater economic security, and higher educa- tion, permit those in this status to develop longer time perspectives and more complex and gradualist views of politics. A belief in secular reformist gradual- ism can only be the ideology of a relatively well-to-do lower class.27 Increased wealth and education also serve democracy by increasing the extent to which the lower strata are exposed to cross pressures which will reduce the intensity of their commitment to given ideologies and make them less receptive to sup- porting extremist ones. The operation of this process will be discussed in more detail in the second part of the paper, but essentially i t functions through en- larging their involvement in an integrated national culture as distinct from an isolated lower class one, and hence increasing their exposure to middle-class values. hlarx argued that the proletariat were a revolutionary force because they have nothing to lose but their chains and can win the whole world. But Tocqueville in analyzing the reasons why the lower strata in America sup- ported the system paraphrased and transposed Marx before Marx ever made this analysis, by pointing out that "only those who have nothing to lose ever revolt."28 Increased wealth is not only related causally to the development of democra- cy by changing the social conditions of the workers, but i t also affects the politi- cal role of the middle class through changing the shape of the stratification structure so that i t shifts from an elongated pyramid, with a large lower-class base, to a diamond with a growing middle-class. A large middle class plays a mitigating role in moderating conflict since i t is able to reward moderate and democratic parties and penalize extremist groups. National income is also related to the political values and style of the upper class. The poorer a country, and the lower the absolute standard of living of the lower classes, the greater the pressure on the upper strata to treat the lower classes as beyond the pale of human society, as vulgar, as innately inferior, as a lower caste. The sharp difference in the style of living between those a t the top and those a t the bottom makes this psychologically necessary. Consequent- ly, the upper strata also tend to regard political rights for the lower strata, par- 2' See S. hI. Lipset, "Socialism-East and West-Left and Right," Conjluence, Vol. 7 (Summer 1958), pp. 173-192. Alexis de 'i'ocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol. I (Nev Yorli: Alfred A. Icnopf, Vintage edition, 1945),p. 258. 84 THE AMERICAN POL~TICAL SCIENCE REVIEW ticularly the right to share in poxyer, as essentially absurd and immoral. The upper strata not only resist democracy themselves, but their often arrogant political behavior serves to intensify extremist reactions on the part of the lower classes. The general income level of a nation will also affect its receptivity to demo- cratic political tolerance norms. The values which imply that i t does not matter greatly which side rules, that error can be tolerated even in the governing party can best develop where (a) the government has little power to affect the crucial life chances of most porn-erful groups, or (b) there is enough wealth in the coun- try so that it actually does not make too much difference if some redistribution does take place. If loss of office is seen as meaning serious loss for major power groups, then they will be readier to resort to more drastic measures in seeking to retain or secure office. The wealth level will also affect the extent to which given countries can develop "universalistic" norms among its civil servants and politicians (selection based on competence; performance without favoritism). The poorer the country, the greater the emphasis which is placed on nepotism, i.e., support of kin and friends. The weakness of the universalistic norms re- duces the opportunity to develop efficient bureaucracy, a condition for a mod- ern democratic state.29 Less directly linked but seemingly still associated with greater wealth is the presence of intermediary organizations and institutions which can act as sources of countervailing power, and recruiters of participants in the political process in the manner discussed by Tocqueville and other exponents of what has come to be known as the theory of the "mass s0ciety."3~ They have argued that a society without a multitude of organizations relatively independent of the central state power has a high dictatorial as well as a revolutionary potential. Such organizations serve a number of functions necessary to democracy: they are a source of countervailing power, inhibiting the state or any single major source of private power from dominating all political resources; they are a source of new opinions; they can be the means of communicating ideas, par- ticularly opposition ideas, to a large section of the citizenry; they serve to train men in the skills of politics; and they help increase the level of interest and par- ticipation in politics. Although there are no reliable data which bear on the relationship between national patterns of voluntary organizations and national political systems, evidence from studies of individual behavior within a number of different countries demonstrates that, independently of other factors, men who belong to associations are more likely to hold democratic opinions on ques- tions concerning tolerance and party systems, and are more likely to participate 2 @ For a discussion of this problem in a new state, see David Apter, T h e Gold Coast in Trans i t ion (Princeton University Press, 1955), esp. chapters 9 and 13. Apter shows the importance of efficient bureaucracy, and the acceptance of bureaucratic values and be- havior patterns, for the existence of a democratic political order. 30 See Emil Lederer, T h e State of the ~ l f a s s e s (New York, 1940); Hannah Arendt, Origins of Total i tarianism (New York, 1950); Max Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason (New York, 1947); Karl Mannheim, M a n and Society in a n Age of Reconstruction (New York, 1940); Philip Selznick, T h e Organizational W e a p o n (New York, 1952); Jos6 Ortega y Gasset, T h e Reaolt of the Masses (New York, 1932). 87 SOME SOCIAL REQUISITES OF DEMOCRACY mate or illegitimate according to the way in which its values fit in with their primary values. Important segments of the German army, civil service, and aristocratic classes rejected the Weimar Republic not because i t was ineffective, but because its symbolism and basic values negated their own. Legitimacy, in and of itself, may be associated with many forms of political organization, in- cluding oppressive ones. Feudal societies, before the advent of industrialism, undoubtedly enjoyed the baaic loyalty of most of their members. Crises of legitimacy are primarily a recent historical phenomenon, following the rise of sharp cleavages among groups which have been able, because of mass com- munication resources, to organize around different values than those previ- ously considered to be the only legitimate ones for the total society. A crisis of legitimacy is a crisis of change, and therefore its roots, as a factor affecting the stability of democratic systems, must be sought in the character of change in modern society. I t may be hypothesized that crises of legitimacy occur during a transition to a new social structure, if (a) all major groups do not secure access to the political system early in the transitional period, or a t least as soon as they develop political demands; or, if (b) the status of major conservative institutions is threatened during the period of structural change. After a new social structure is established, if the new system is unable to sustain the expectations of major groups (on the grounds of "effectiveness") for a long enough period to develop legitimacy upon the new basis, a new crisis may de- velop. Tocqueville gave a graphic description of the first general type of loss of legitimacy, referring mainly to countries which had moved from aristocratic monarchies to democratic republics: '' . . . epochs sometimes occur in the life of a nation when the old customs of a people are changed, public morality is destroyed, religious belief shaken, and the spell of tradition broken. . . . " The citizens then have "neither the instinctive patriotism of a monarchy nor the reflecting patriotism of a republic; . . . they have stopped between the two in the midst of confusion and distress."33 If, however, the status of major conservative groups and symbols is not threatened during this transitional period even though they lose most of their power, democracy seems to be much more secure. Striking evidence of the link between the preserved legitimacy of conservative institutions and democracy is the relationship between monarchy and democracy. Given the role of the American and French republican revolutions as the initiators of modern demo- cratic political movements, the fact that ten out of 12 of the stable European and English-speaking democracies are monarchies seems a rather ludicrous cor- relation. Great Britain, Sweden, Korway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, Australia, Canada, and Ken7 Zealand are kingdoms; while the only republics which meet the twin conditions, of stabie democratic procedures since democracy was instituted, and the absence of a major totalitarian move- ment in the past 25 years, are the United States, Switzerland and Uruguay. a3 O p . cit., pp. 251-252 88 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW Nations which have moved from absolutism and oligarchy (linked to a state church) to a democratic welfare state, while retaining the forms of monarchy, more frequently seem able to make changes while sustaining a continuous thread of legitimacy for their political i n ~ t i t u t i o n s . ~ ~ The preservation of the monarchy has apparently retained for the system the loyalty of the aristocratic, traditionalist, and clerical sectors of the popu- lation which resented increased democratization and equalitarianism. And, by more graciously accepting the lower strata, by not resisting to the point that revolution might be necessary, the conservative orders \170n or retained the loyalty of the nem7 "citizens." Where monarchy was overthro~x7n by revolution, and orderly succession was broken, those forces aligned mith monarchy have sometimes continued to refuse legitimacy to republican successors don711 to the fifth generation or more. The one constitutional monarchy which became a Fascist dictatorship, Italy, was, like the French Republic, relatively new and still illegitimate for major groups in the society. The House of Savoy alienated the Catholics by destroy- ing the temporal power of the Popes, and was also not a legitimate successor in the old Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Catholics, in fact, \\-ere forbidden by the church to participate in Italian politics until close to m70rld War I, and the church rescinded its original ban only because of its fear of the Socialists. A similar attitude was taken by French Catholics to the Third Republic during the same period. Both Italian and French democracy have had to operate for much of their histories without loyal support from important groups in their society, both on the left and on the right. Thus, one main source of legitimacy lies in the continuity of primary conservative and integrative institutions dur- ing a transitional period in which new social institutions are emerging. The second general type of loss of legitimacy is, as indicated above, related to the way in which societies handle the "entry into politics" problem. The determination of when new social groups shall obtain access to the political process affects the legitimacy of the political system, either for conservative or for emerging groups. In the 10th century these nen7 groups were primarily in- dustrial workers; the "entry into politics" crisis of the 20th century typically involves colonial elites, and peasant peoples. Whenever new groups become po- litically active (e.g., when the workers first seek access to economic and political power through economic organization and the suffrage, when the bourgeoisie demanded access to and participation in government, when coloiiial elites de- mand control over their own system), comparatively easy access to the legiti- mate political institutions tends to win the loyalty of the nen7 groups to the sys- tem, and they in turn can permit the old dominating strata to maintain their own status integrity. In nations such as Germany, where access mas denied a4 llralter Lippmann, referring to the seemingly greater capacity of the constitutional monarchies than the republics of Europe t o "preserve order with freedom," suggests that this may be because "in a republic the governing power, being wholly secularized, loses much of its prestige; i t is stripped, if one prefers, of all the illusions of intrinsic majesty." See his The Public Philosophy (New York: Mentor Books, 1956), p. 50. 89 SOME SOCIAL REQUISITES OF DEMOCRACY for prolonged periods, first to the bourgeoisie and later to the workers, arid where force was used to restrict access, the lower strata were alienated from the system, and were led to adopt extremist ideologies which, in turn, alienated the more established groups from an acceptance of the workers' political move- ment as a legitimate alternative. Political systems which denied new strata access to power except through revolutionary means also inhibited the growth of legitimacy by introducing rnillenial hopes into the political arena. Groups which feel obliged to push their way into the body politic through forceful means tend to overexaggerate the possibilities which political participation afford. Their hopes are for far more than the inherent limitations of political stability permit. Consequently, demo- cratic regimes born under such stress ill not only face the difficulty of being regarded as illegitimate by those groups loyal to the ancien regime, but may be also rejected by those whose millenial hopes were not fulfilled by the change. France seems to offer an example of such a phenomenon. Right-wing clericalists have viewed the Republic as illegitimate, while sections of the lower strata still impatiently await rnillenial fulfillment. Illany of the newly independent nations of Asia and Africa face the problem of winning the loyalties of the masses to democratic states which can do little to fulfill the utopian objectives set by na- tionalist movements during the period of colonialism, and the transitional struggle to independence. We have discussed several conditions bearing upon the maintenance, or the initial securing of legitimacy by a political system. Assuming reasonable effec- tiveness, if the status of major conservative groups is threatened, or if access to the political system is denied at crucial periods, the legitimacy of the system will remain in question. Even in legitimate systems, a breakdown of effective- ness, repeatedly or for a long period, will endanger its stability. A major test of legitimacy is the extent to which given nations have devel- oped a common "secular political culture," national rituals and holidays which serve to maintain the legitimacy of various democratic practice^.^^ The United States has developed a common homogeneous secular political culture as re- flected in the veneration and consensus surrounding the Founding Fathers, Jefferson, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and their principles. These common elements to which all American politicians appeal are not present in all demo- cratic societies. In some European countries, the Left and the Right have a different set of symbols, and different historical political heroes. France offers the clearest example of a nation which has not developed such a common heri- tage. Thus many of the battles involving use of different symbols between the left and the right from 1789 down through much of the 19th century are "still in progress, and the issue is still open; everyone of these dates [of major political controversy] still divides left and right, clerical and anti-clerical, progressive and reactionary, in all their historically determined constellation^."^^ as See Gabriel Almond, "Comparative Political Systems," Journal of Politics, Vol. 18 (1956), pp. 391-409. Herbert Luethy, The State of France (London: Secker and Warburg, 1955), p. 29. 92 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCEREVIEW Since the existence of a moderate state of conflict is an inherent aspect of a legitimate democratic system, and is in fact another way of defining it , we should not be surprised that the principal factors determining such an optimum state are closely linked to those which produce legitimacy viewed in terms of continuities of symbols and status. Essentially the character and content of the major cleavages affecting the political stability of a society are largely de- termined by historical factors which have affected the way in which major issues dividing society have been solved or left unresolved over time. In modern times, three major issues have emerged in western states. The first was the religious issue: the place of the church and/or various religions within the nation. The second has been the problem of the admission of the lower strata, particularly the workers, to "citizenship," the establishment of access to power through universal suffrage, and the legitimate right to bargain collectively in the economic sphere. The third has been the continual struggle over the distribution of the national income. The significant general question here is this: mere these major issues dealt with one by one, and each one more or less solved before the next arose, or did the problems accumulate, so that historical issues and sources of cleavage mixed with newer ones? Resolving tensions one a t a time contributes toward a stable political system; carrying over issues from one historical period to another makes for a political atmosphere characterized by bitterness and frustration rather than by tolerance and compromise. Men and parties come to differ with each other, not simply on ways of settling current problems, but rather by fun- damental and opposed weltanschauungen. They come to see the political victory of their opponents as a major moral threat; and the total system, as a result, lacks effective value-integration. The religious issue, the place of the church in the society, was fought through and solved in most of the Protestant nations in the 18th and 19th centuries, and ceased to be a matter for serious political controversy. In some states, such as the United States, the church was disestablished and it accepted this result. In others, such as Britain, Scandinavia, and Switzerland, religion remains state- supported, but the state churches, like constitutional monarchs, have only nominal sway and have ceased to be major sources of controversy. I t remains for the Catholic countries of Europe to provide us with examples of situations in which the historic controversy between clerical and anti-clerical forces, sparked by the French Revolution, has continued to divide men politically down to the present day. Thus in countries such as France, Italy, Spain, and Austria, being Catholic has meant being allied with rightist or conservative groups in politics; while being anti-clerical (or a member of a minority religion) has most often meant alliance with thc left. In a number of these countries, newer issues, when they emerged, became superimposed on the religious ques- tion; and for conservative Catholics, the fight against Socialists was not simply an economic struggle, or a controversy over social institutions, but a deep- rooted conflict between God and Satan, between good and evil.40 For many The linkage between democratic instability and Catholicism may aleo be accounted for by elements inherent in Catholicism as a religious system. Democracy requires a 93 SOME SOCIAL REQUISITES OF DEillOCRACY secular iiltellectuals in contemporary Italy, oppositioii to the church legitimates alliance with the Communists. As long as religious ties reinforce secular politi- cal alignments, the chances for democratic give-and-take, and compromise, are weak. The "citizenship" or "political equality" issue has also been resolved in various ways. Thus the United States and Britain gave citizenship to the work- ers in the early or mid-nineteenth century. Sweden and a number of European nations rcsisted through the beginning of the 20th century, and the struggle for citizenship became combined in these countries with socialism as a political movement, thereby producing a revolutionary socialism. Or to put this in other terms, where the workers viere denied economic aiid political citizenship rights, their struggle for redistribution of income and status was superimposed on a revolutionary ideology. TTThere the economic and status struggle developed out- side this context, the ideology with which i t was linked tended to be that of gradualist reformism. In Hohenzollern Germany, for example, the morkers were denied a free and equal suffrage in Prusbia until the revolution of 1918. This denial of "citizenship" facilitated the retention of revolutionary Marxism in those parts of Germany mhere equal suffrage did not exist. I11 Southern Germany, where full citizenship rights \yere granted in the late 19th century, reformist, democratic, and non-revolutionary socialism was dominant. The perpetuation of revolutionary dogmas in much of the Social Democratic party served to give ultra-leftists a voice in party leadership, enabled the Communists to win strength after the military defeat, and perhaps even more important historically, served to frighten large sections of the German middle classes. The latter feared that a socialist victory would really mean an end to all their privileges and status. In France, the morkers won the suffrage but mere refused basic economic rights until after World TTar 11. Major groups of French einployers denied legitimacy to the French trade-unions, and sought to weaken or destroy them following every trade-union victory. The illstability of the French unions, their constant need to preserve worker militancy to survive, gave access to the viorkers to the more revolutionary and extremist political groups. Communist universalistic political belief system in the sense that it legitimates different ideologies. And it might be assumed that religious value systems which are more universalistic in the sense of placing less stress on being the only true church will be more compatible with democracy than those which assume that they have the only truth. The latter belief, held much more strongly by the Catholic than by most other Christian churches, makes it difficult for the religious value system to help legitimate a political system which re- quires, as part of its basic value system, the belief that "good" is served best through con- flict among opposing beliefs. Kingsley Davis has argued that a Catholic state church tends to be irreconcilable with de~rlocracy since "Catholicism attempts to control so many aspects of life, to encourage so much fixity of status and submission to authority, and to remain so independent of secular authority that it invariably clashes with the liberalism, individualism, freedom, mobility and sovereignty of the democratic nation." See his "Political Ambivalence in Latin America," Journal of Legal and Political Sociology, Vol. 1 (1943), reprinted in Christensen, The Evolution of Latin American Government (New York, 1951), p. 240. 94 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW domination of the French labor movement can in large part be traced to the tactics of the French business classes. The examples presented above do not explain why different countries varied in the way they handled basic national cleavages. They should suffice, however, to illustrate the worth of a hypothesis relating the conditions for stable demo- cratic government to the bases of diversity. Where a number of historic cleav- ages intermix and create the basis for weltanschauung politics, the democracy will be unstable and weak, for by definition such political views do not include the concept of tolerance. Weltanschauung politics have also weakened the possibilities for a stable democracy, since parties characterized by such total ideologies have often attempted to create what Sigmund Keumann has called an "integrated" envi- ronment, one in which as much as possible of the lives of their members is en- capsulated within ideologically linked activities. These actions are based on the assumption that i t is important to isolate their followers from contact with "falsehood" expressed by non-believers. Keumann has suggested the need for a basic analytic distinction between parties of representation, which strengthen democracy, and parties of integration which weaken it.41 The former are typified by most parties in the English-speaking democracies and in Scandinavia, and by most centrist and conservative parties other than the religious ones. They view the party function as primarily one of securing votes around electioi~ time. The parties of integration, on the other hand, are concerned with making the world conform to their basic philosophy or weltanschauung. They do not see themselves as contestarits in a give-and-take game of pressure politics, in which all parties accept the rules of the game. Rather they view the political or reli- gious struggle as a contest between divine or historic truth on one side and fun- damental error on the other. Given this conception of the world, i t becomes necessary to prevent their followers from being exposed to the cross-pressures flowing from contact with falsehood, which will reduce their faith. The two major non-totalitarian groupings which have followed such pro- cedures have been the Catholics and the Socialists. In general, in much of Eu- rope before 1939, the Catholics and Socialists attempted to increase intra- religious or intra-class communicatio~~s by creating a network of church- and party-linked social and economic organizations within which their folloxvers could live their entire lives. Austria offers perhaps the best example of a situa- tion in which two groups, the Social Catholics and the Social Democrats, di- vided over all three historic issues and separated the country into two hostile 41 See Sigmund Neumann, Die Deutschen Parteien: W e s e n u n d W a n d e l nach d e m Kriege (2nd ed., Berlin, 1932), for exposition of the distinction between parties of integration and parties of representation. Neumann has further distinguished between parties of "demo- cratic integration" (the Catholic, and Social Democratic parties) and those of "total integration" (Fascists and Communist parties) in his more recent chapter, "Toward a Comparative Study of Political Parties," in the volume which he edited: Modern Political Parties (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956), pp. 403-405. SOME SOCIAL REQUISITES OF DEMOCRACY 97 same political choice, he is in the situation of the isolated worker, and is much less likely to exhibit tolerance of oppositioil opinions, or vie~v the possibility of their coming to power with equanimity. The evidence available suggests that the chances for stable democracy are enhanced to the extent that social strata, groups and individuals have a number of cross-cutting politically relevant affiliations. To the degree that a significant proportion of the population is pulled among conflicting forces, such groups and individuals have an interest in reducing the intensity of political c~nflict.~" As Robert Dahl and Talcott Parsons have pointed out, such groups and indi- viduals also have an interest in protecting the rights of political min~rities.~' A stable democracy requires relatively moderate tension among the contend- ing political forces. And political moderation is facilitated by the capacity of a system to resolve key dividing issues before new ones arise. To the extent that the cleavages of religion, citizenship, and "collective bargaining" have been allo~vedto cumulate and reinforce each other as stimulants of partisan hostility, the system is weakened. The more reinforced and correlated the sources of cleavage, the less the likelihood for political tolerance. Sin~ilarly, on the level of group and individual behavior, the greater the isolation from heterogeneous political stimuli, the more that background factors "pile up" in one direction, the greater the chances that the group or individual will have an extremist perspective. These two relationships, one on the level of partisan issues, the other on the nature of party support, are linked together by the fact that parties reflecting accumulated unresolved issues will seek to isolate their followers from conflicting stimuli, to prevent exposure to "error," while isolated indi- viduals and groups will strengthen the intolerant tendencies in the political party system. The conditions maximizing political cosmopolitanism among the electorate are the growth of urbanization, education, communications media, and increased wealth. Most of the obvious isolated occupations, mining, lum- '6 See B. Berelson, P. F. Lazarsfeld, and W. ILIcPhee, Vot ing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954), for an exposition of the usefulness of cross-pressure as an explanatory concept. Also, see S. ILI. Lipset, J. Linz, P. F. Lazarsfeld, and A. Barton, "Psychology of Voting," in Handbook of Social Psychology, Vol. 2 (Cambridge: Addison-Wesley, 1954), for an attempt to specify the consequences of different group memberships for voting behavior, and a review of the literature. 47 As Dahl puts it, "if most individuals in the society identify with more than one group, then there is some positive probability that any majority contains individuals who identify for certain purposes with the threatened minority. Members of the threatened minority who strongly prefer their alternative will make their feelings known t o those members of the tentative majority who also, a t some psychological level, identify with the minority. Some of these sympathizers will shift their support away from the majority alternative and the majority will crumble." See Robert A. Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956), pp. 104-5. Parsons suggests that "pushing the implications of political difference too far activates the solidarities between adherents of the two parties which exist on other, nonpolitical bases so that majorities come to defend minorities of their own kind who differ from them politically." See Parsons' essay "Voting and the Equilibrium of the American Political System," in the volume edited by E. Burdick and A. Brodbeck, Amer ican Vot ing Behavior (Glencoe: The Free Press, forthcoming). 98 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW bering, agriculture, belong to the category of "primary" occupations, occupa- tions whose relative sl-iare of the labor force declines sharply with economic d e v e l ~ p m e n t . ~ ~ Thus, we see again how the factors involved in modernization or economic development are linked closely to those involved in the historic institutionali- zation of the values of legitimacy and tolerance. But it should always be noted that correlations are only statements concerning relative degrees of congruence, and that another condition for political action is that the correlation never be so clear-cut that men cannot feel that they can change the direction of affairs by their actions. And this fact of low correlation means also that it is important for analytic purposes to keep variables distinct even if they intercorrelate. For example, the analysis of cleavage presented here suggests specific propositions concerning the ways in which different electoral and constitutional arrange- ments may affect the chances for democracy. These generalizations are pre- sented in the following section. IV. SYSTEhfS O F GOVERNMENT AND DEhiOCRACY From the hypothesis that cross-cutting bases of cleavage are better for the vitality of democracy, it follows that two-party systems are better than multi- party systems, that electoral systems involving the election of officials on a ter- ritorial basis are preferable to systems of proportional representation, and that federalism is superior to a unitary state. In evaluating these propositions, it is important to note again that they are made with the assumption of all other factors being held constant. Clearly, stable democracies are compatible with multi-party systems, with proportional representation, and with a unitary state. And in fact, I would argue that such variations in systems of government, while significant, are much less important than those derived from basic dif- ferences in social structure of the sort discussed in the previous sections. The argument for the two-party system rests on the assumptions that in a complex society, such parties must necessarily be broad coalitions; that they cannot seek to serve only the interests of one major group; that they cannot be parties of integration; and that in building electoral coalitions, they necessarily antagonize support among those most committed to them, and conversely must seek to win support among groups which are preponderantly allied to the opposition party. Thus, the British Conservative or American Republican parties must not so act as to antagonize basically the manual workers, since a large part of the vote must come from them. The Democratic and Labor parties are faced with a similar problem vis-d-vis the middle strata. Parties which are never oriented toward gaining a majority seek to maximize their electoral support from a limited base. Thus a peasant-oriented party will ac- centuate peasant group interest consciousness, and a party appealing primarily to small businessmen will do the same for its group. Elections, instead of being occasions on which parties seek to find the broadest possible base of support, 48 Colin Clark, The Conditions of Economic Progress (New York , 1940). SOME SOCIAL REQUISITES OF DEMOCRACY 99 and so to bring divergent groups to see their common interests, become events in which parties stress the cleavages separating their principal supporters from other groupings. The proposition that proportional representation weakens rather than strengthens democracy rests on the analysis of the differences between multi- party and majority party situations. If i t is true, as is suggested above, that ( (multi-partyness" serves to sharpen differences and reduce consensus, then any electoral system which increases the chance for more rather than fewer parties serves democracy badly. Further, as Georg Simmel pointed out, the system of electing members of parliament to represent territorial constituencies, as contrasted with systems which encourage direct group representation (such as proportional repre- sentation), is preferable, since territorial representation helps to stabilize the political systems by forcing interest groups to secure their ends only within an electoral framework that involves some concern with many interests and the need for compromi~e.~g Federalism serves to strengthen democracy by increasing the opportunity for multiple sources of cleavage. I t adds regional interests and values to the others such as class, religion and ethnicity which cross-cut the social structure. A major exception to this generalization occurs when federalism divides the country according to lines of basic cleavage, e.g., between different ethnic, re- ligious, or linguistic areas. 111 such cases, as in India or in Canada, federalism may then serve to accentuate and reinforce cleavages. Cleavage is desirable within linguistic or religious groups, not between them. But where such divi- sions do not exist, then federalism seems to serve democracy well. Besides cre- ating a further source of cross-cutting cleavage, it also serves various functions which Tocqueville noted it shared with strong voluntary associations. Among these, it is the source of resistance to centralization of power and a source of training of nev; political leaders; and it gives the "out" party a stake in the system as a whole, since national "out" parties usually continue to control some units of the system. Let me repeat that I do not suggest that these aspects of the political struc- ture as such are key conditions for democratic systems. If the underlying social conditions are such as to facilitate democracy, as seems true for Sweden, then the cornbii~atio~l of multi-partyness, proportional representation, and a unitary state, do not seriously weaken it. At most they serve to permit irresponsible minorities to gain a foothold in parliament. On the other hand, where a low level of effectiveness and of legitimacy has operated to weaken the foundations of democracy as occurred in Weimar Germany, or in France, then coi~stitutional 48 Georg Simmel, op. cit., pp. 191-194. Talcott Parsons has recently made a similar point, indicating that one of the mechanisms for preventing a "progressively deepening rift in the elect,orateW is the "involvement of voting with the ramified solidarity structure of the society in such a way, that, though there is a correlation, there is no exact corre- spondence between political polarization and other bases of differentiation. Parsons, op. cit. 102 T H E AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE R E V I E W will be characterized by an open party system representing basically different class positions and values.52 Latin America, underdeveloped economically like Asia, is, however, polit- ically more like Europe in the early 19th century than like Asia today. Most Latin American couiltries became independent states before the rise of indus- trialism and hlarxist ideologies, and contain strongholds of traditional con- servatism. The countryside is often apolitical or traditional, and the leftist movements secure support primarily from the industrial proletariat. Latin American communists, for example, have chosen the European Marxist path of organizing urban workers, rather than the "Yenan way" of Mao, seeking a peasant base.63 If Latin America is allowed to develop on its own, and is able to increase its productivity and middle classes, there is a good chance that many Latin American countries will follow in the European direction. Recent devel- opments, including the overthrowal of a number of dictatorships, in large meas- ure reflect the effects of an increased middle class, growing wealth, and in- creased education. There is, however, also the possibility that these countries may yet follo~v in the French and Italian direction rather than that of northern Europe, that the communists will seize the leadership of the workers, and that the middle class will be alienated from democracy. The analysis of the social requisites for democracy contained in this paper has sought to identify some, though obviously far from all, of the structural conditions which are linked to this political system. I t has been possible in a very limited fashion to attempt some tests of the hypotheses suggested. These preliminary efforts to apply the method of science to comparative political sys- tems can still be considered only as illustrative since we can say so little about actual variations in national social structures. Considerably more research must be done specifying the boundaries of various societies along many dimensions before reliable comparative analysis of the sort attempted here can be carried out. Although the task obviously presents tremendous difficulties, i t is only through such methods that we can move beyond tile conventioiial semi-literary methods of giving illustrative examples to support plausible interpretations. 62 As this paper was being edited for publication, political crises in several poor and illiterate countries occurred, which underlinc again the instability of democratic govern- ment in underdeveloped areas. The government of Pakistan was overthrown peacefully on October 7, 1958, and the new self-appointed president announced that "Western-type democracy cannot function here under present conditions. We have only 16 per cent literacy. I n America you have 98 per cent." (Associated Press release, October 9, 1958). The new government proceeded to abolish parliament and all political parties. Similar crises have occurred, almost simultaneously, in Tunisia, Ghana, and even in Burma, which since World War I1 has been considered one of the more stable governments in Southeast Asia, under Premier U Nu. Guinea has begun life as an independent state with a one-party system. I t is possible that the open emergence of semi-dictatorships without much democratic "front" may reflect the weakening of democratic symbols in these areas under the impact of Soviet ideology, which equates "democracy" with rapid, efficient accomplishment of the "will of the people" by an educated elite, not with particular political forms and methods. 63 Robert J. Alexandcr, Conznzunisnz in Latin Anzerica (New Brunswick: Rutgers Uni- versity Press, 1957). SOME SOCIAL REQUISITES OF DEMOCRACY 103 The data available are, however, of a sufficiently consistent character to sup- port strongly the conclusion that a more systematic and up-to-date version of -2ristotle's hypothesis concerning the relationship of political forms to social structure is valid. Unfortunately, as has been indicated above, this conclusion does not justify the optimistic liberal's hope that an increase in wealth, in the size of the middle class, in education, and other related factors will necessarily mean the spread of democracy or the stabilizing of democracy. As Max Weber, in discussing the chances for democracy in Russia in the early 20th century pointed out: "The spread of Western cultural and capitalist economy did not, ipso facto, guarantee that Russia ~ o u l d also acquire the liberties which had accompanied their emergence in European history. . . . European liberty had been born in unique, perhaps unrepeatable, circumstances a t a time when the intellectual and material conditions for i t were exceptionally propi- t i o u ~ . " ~ ~ These suggestions that the peculiar concatellation of factors which gave rise to western democracy in the nineteenth century may be unique are not meant to be unduly pessimistic. Political democracy exists and has existed in a variety of circumstances, even if i t is most commonly sustained by a limited cluster of conditions. To understand more fully the various conditions under which i t has existed may make possible the development of democracy elsewhere. Democracy is not achieved by acts of will alone; but men's wills, through action, can shape institutions and events in directions that reduce or increase the chance for the development and survival of democracy. To aid men's actions in furthering democracy was in some measure Tocqueville's purpose in studying the operation of American democracy, and i t remains perhaps the most important substantive intellectual task which students of politics can still set before themselves. ATETHODOLOGICAL A P P E N D I X The approach of this paper (as has already been indicated) is implicitly different from others which have attempted to handle social phenomena on a total societal level, and i t may be useful to make explicit some of the methodological postulates underlying this presentation. Complex characteristics of a social system, such as democracy, the degree of bureau- cratization, the type of stratification system, have usually been handled either by a re- ductionist approach or by an "ideal-type" approach. The former approach dismisses the possibility of considering those characteristics as system-attributes as such, and maintains that qualities of individual actions are the sum and substance of sociological categories. For this school of thought, the extent of democratic attitudes, or of bureaucratic behavior, or the numbers and types of prestige or power rankings, constitute the essence of the meaning of the attributes of democracy, bureaucracy, or class. The "ideal-type" approach starts from a similar assumption, but reaches an opposite conclusion. The similar assumption is that societies are a complex order of phenomena, exhibiting such a degree of internal contradiction, that generalizations about them as a whole must necessarily constitute a constructed representation of selected elements, stemming from the particular concerns and perspectives of the scientist. The opposite conclusion is that abstractions of the order of "democracy" or "bureaucracyJ' have no 54 Richard Pipes, "Max Weber and Russia," World Politics, Vol. 7 (1955), p. 353. 104 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW necessary connection with states or qualities of complex social systems which actually exist, but comprise collections of attributes which are logically interrelated, but charac- teristic in their entirety of no existing society.65 An example of this type of abstraction is Weber's concept of "bureaucracy," comprising a set of offices, which are not "owned" by the office-holder, continuously maintained files of records, functionally specified duties, etc. Another is the common definition of democracy in political science, which postulates individual political decisions based on rational knowledge of one's on-n ends and of the factual political situation. Criticism of categories, or ideal-types, such as this, solely on the basis that they do not correspond to reality is irrelevant, because they are not intended to describe reality, but to provide a basis for comparing different aspects of reality ~ i t h t eir deviations from the consistently logical case. Often this approach is quite fruitful, and there is no intention here of substituting another methodological approach in its place, but merely of presenting another possible way of conceptualizing complex characteristics of social systems, stem- ming from the multi-variate analysis pioneered by Paul Lazarsfeld and his colleagues on a quite different level of analysis.56 The point a t which this approach differs is on the issue of whether generalized theoreti- cal categories can be considered to have a valid relationship to characteristics of total social systems. The implication of the statistical data presented in this paper concerning democracy, and the relations between democracy, economic development, and political legitimacy, is that there are aspects of total social systems which exist, can be stated in theoretical terms, can be compared with similar aspects of other systems, and, a t the same time, are derivable from empirical data which can be checked (or questioned) by other researchers. This does not mean a t all that situations contradicting the general relationship may not exist, or that a t lower levels of social organization, quite different characteristics may not be evident. For example, a country like the United States may be characterized as "democratic" on the national level, even though most secondary or- ganizations within the country may not be democratic. On another level, a church may be characterized as a "non-bureaucratic" organization, when compared with a corporation, even though important segments of the church organization may be as bureaucratized as the most bureaucratic parts of the corporation. On yet another level, i t may be quite legitimate, for purposes of psychological evaluation of the total personality, to consider a certain individual as "schizophrenic," even though under certain conditions, he may not act schizophrenically. The point is that when comparisons are being made on a certain level of generalization, referring to the functioning of a total system (whether on a per- sonality, group, organization, or society level), generalizations applicable to a total ~oc ie ty have the same kind and degree of validity that those applicable to other systems have, and are subject to the same empirical tests. The lack of many systematic and comparative studies of several societies has obscured this point. This approach also stresses the view that complex characteristics of a total system have multivariate causation, and also multivariate consequences, insofar as the charac- S5 Max Weber's essay on " 'Objectivity' in Social Science and Social Policy," in his Methodology of the Social Sciences, op. cit., pp. 72-93. 66 The methodological presuppositions of this approach on the level of the multi-variate correlations and interactions of individual behavior with various social characteristics have been presented in Paul F. Lazarsfeld, "Interpretation of Statistical Relations as a Research Operation," in P. F. Lazarsfeld and M. Rosenberg, eds., The Language of Social Research (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1955)) pp. 115-125; and in H. Hyman, Survey Deaign and Analysis (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1955), chapters 6 and 7. See also the methodologi- cal appendices to Lipset, et al., Union Democracy, op. cit., pp. 419-432; and S. M. Lipset, "The Political Process in Trade Unions: A Theoretical Statement," in M. Berger, et al., eds., Freedom and Control i n Modern Society (Kew York: Van Nostrand, 1954), pp. 122-124.