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88 Foreign Aff. 33 (2009)
How Development Leads to Democracy: What We Know about Modernization

handle is hein.journals/fora88 and id is 247 raw text is: How Development Leads to Democracy What We Know About Modernization Ronald Inglebart and Christian Weel IN THE last several years, a democratic boom has given way to a democratic recession. Between 1985 and 1995, scores of countries made the transition to democracy, bringing widespread euphoria about democracy's future. But more recently, democracy has retreated in Bangladesh, Nigeria, the Philippines, Russia, Thailand, and Venezuela, and the Bush administration's attempts to establish democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq seem to have left both countries in chaos. These developments, along with the growing power of China and Russia, have led many observers to argue that democracy has reached its high- water mark and is no longer on the rise. That conclusion is mistaken. The underlying conditions of societies around the world point to a more complicated reality. The bad news is that it is unrealistic to assume that democratic institutions can be set up easily, almost anywhere, at any time. Although the outlook is never hopeless, democracy is most likely to emerge and survive when certain social and cultural con- ditions are in place. The Bush administration ignored this reality when it attempted to implant democracy in Iraq without first establishing inter- nal security and overlooked cultural conditions that endangered the effort. RONALD I NGLEHART is Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan and Director of the World Values Survey. CHRISTIAN WE LZE L is Professor of Political Science at Jacobs University Bremen, in Germany They are the co-authors of Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy. [33]

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