Comparative Political Development (Essay Sample)

Comparative Political Development Student’s Name Institution of Learning Comparative Political Development The political and economic spheres of society are inextricably linked and represent the interaction of the state, civil society and the individual, which makes the fundamental determinants of any social order. The thesis that the economy influences politics and politics is a concentrated expression of the economy that was used by the formative approach did not allow defining the complex interrelationships of these spheres of society. Nevertheless, during the critical periods of the state's development, the processes of economic reform entail significant changes in the political sphere. Less attention is paid to the theoretical comprehension of reform processes by the authorities, preferences that are given to economic or political interests that violate the conditions of their interaction. In the mid-1990's - early 2000's there was a revival of the interest of political scientists in the study of the correlation between economic development and political culture and democracy. American researchers carried out an analysis of a large-scale sample of synchronous empirical data for countries in the period from the 1950s to the 1990s. They used a new approach to the problem of the correlation between democracy and economic development, singling out two ways of democratization: "endogenous", in which economic development linearly leads to democracy; "exogenous", where economic development supports already established democracy. As a result of a comparative study, it was concluded that the exogenous version is correct, and the endogenous version is erroneous. In other words, economic development contributes to the functioning of the democratic regime and plays a significant role in determining the support of democracy (Przeworski et al., 2000, p.109). Modern research does not give much space to the details and theoretical justification for how the mechanism for supporting democracy works in the exogenous version. In addition, the question and unambiguous negation of the value of the endogenous version raise questions. The applied design factor still indicates a smaller, in comparison with the exogenous version, but a statistically significant influence of the factor of economic development in the period of transition to democracy. These problems immediately caused a critical reaction among other researchers. Boix and Stokes offered the following specific mechanism of endogenous democratization – the income inequality. They conducted their own research, in which, in order to obtain a more reliable result, they shifted the lower boundary until 1850, when the countries in question were not democratic. The upper boundary became 1950. Comparing the obtained data and results, they came to the conclusion that the endogenous version of democratization still works for a considerable period - both before 1950 and after. In this context, they convincingly show that, before 1950, transitions to democracy occurred in countries with a lower level of GDP compared with cases of transition of countries to democracy after 1950. They also prove that states that achieved a higher level of income equality before 1950 managed to do this, despite the lower level of economic development compared with countries that have moved to democracy later. The undoubted merit of Boix and Stokes was the theoretical explanation of the mechanism for converting economic development into democracy, where the income inequality plays the main role. The reason for democracy is not the income itself, but the additional circumstances associated with it, in particular, income inequality (Boix & Stokes, 2003, p.540). Boix and Stokes believe that income is distributed in the development process of states with greater fairness, which leads to support the scheme of equal distribution of income in elections and lower costs for the rich, who begin to view the democratic tax system as less expensive. The state is growing, and the rich are more willing to contribute to democratization. Economic growth is not just a puzzle, over which economists and politicians are racking their brains. Economic growth affects the welfare of billions of people around the world. In “The Mystery of Economic Growth”, Elhanan Helpman examines the extensive studies that revolutionized the understanding of economic growth in recent years and sets out the main ideas of these studies. Research on economic growth concerns many topics: the importance of the accumulation of physical and human capital; The influence of technological factors on the rate of this accumulation; The process of creating knowledge and its impact on productivity; Interdepende...