Two major events have happened internationally recently: First, Cambodia has completed power transfer.Hun Sen and the People's Party led by the leaders won in the election. This is a election that lacks competition and has less suspense.Subsequently, Hun Sen announced his resignation and transferred his power to the eldest son Hon Ma Na, and he was left as the Chairman of the People's Party and a member of the Parliament.As early as March of this year, Hun Sen also appointed Hongma Hongma as the deputy commander of the Army.This operation means that this country has successfully achieved the essence of "family world" through democratic forms; the second is that on July 26, local time, Niger, an inland country in West Africa, broke out for military coup.Earlier that day, the Niger Presidential Palace defended the presidential palace located in the capital Niamei, and seized the election of President Mohammed Burch.A few hours later, the representative of the coup of Colonel Ama Du Abu Drama's Certified Soldiers read a statement on the National Television Station of Niger that due to the continued deterioration of the security situation of Niger and the government's poor social and economic governance, they decided to overthrow the Bazum regime.Take over national affairs.
In fact, Niger and Cambodia are not alone. The Burmese in the past few years did not see the Democratic country, and the democratic country suddenly returned to the military autocratic government.Such countries can also list a long list, such as: Sierra Leine, the Republic of the Central African Republic, Liberia, Burundi ... is Zimbabwe, and at the beginning of independence, under the supervision of the United Nations and the former master of the sectFor Mugabe's personal stage.The well -known American political scientist Huntington and Harvard professor Baro observed that these countries were all poor and all of them were poor.The question is, why is the democracy of the poor country always so unsustainable?
In response to this issue, the academic community has done extensive discussions.
Weber, a well -known German sociologist and philosopher, once said: Modern democracy with clear outlines can only appear in capitalist industrialization.Canada, Australia and other English -speaking non -European countries, as well as the average of those countries with more or less democracy in Latin America.Through these extensive information and comparison of comprehensive statistical inspection, the results show that the higher the level of democracy, the higher the level of education, the level of industrialization, the degree of urbanization, and the higher the level of education.Conversely, whether it is wealth or industrialization, or urbanization, or education level, the lower the average number of countries, the lower the degree of democracy.
Lip Sett observed the world economy and democracy after World War II to 1955. His view is still standing in the later time dimension?Kenneth A. Bollen and Robert W. Jackman completed a study in 1985, which gave a positive answer to this question.They also found that "the level of economic development has a significant impact on political democracy."In this paper, they further pointed out that "per capita national income (GNI) is also the most important explanatory change."
Their views and research methods have been inherited and responded by Huntington.On the basis of them, Huntington's economic indicators of a country have simplified to GNI from the four items of Lipuste's wealth, industrialization, urbanization, and education.In his opinion, the level of democracy corresponds to GNI is the level of democracy.He classified the GNI of various countries announced by the World Bank as the standard, and inspected the world economy and democracy of the 1970s and the 1980s. Through statistical analysis, it was found that the country (and the world's "high -income country" (and the country (and the country (and the country's "high -income country" (and the conditions of the "high -income country" (and the conditions of the "high -income country" (andThe number of regions) is 23.Among them, there are 18 democratic countries and two non -democratic countries. The number of democratized and liberalized countries between the two is three.In other words, the proportion of democratic countries at this level of economic development is nearly 80%.There are 34 countries (and regions) that meet the conditions of "poor country", of which only one democratic country, as many as 31 non -democratic countries.indivual.In other words, in the level of economic development, the proportion of democratic countries is less than 3%, but the proportion of non -democratic countries is as high as 91%.
Based on the above discovery, Huntingdon came to an important conclusion, "there is a comprehensive correlation between the degree of economic development and democracy."As historical experience tells us, this correlation is obviously positive.The lower the level of the economic development of a country, the lower the degree of democracy.Conversely, the higher the economic development of a country, the higher the degree of democracy.In other words, how high the degree of economic prosperity and democratic development will be high.In that third wave: In the wave of democratization at the end of the 20th century, Huntington even publicly said: "In the poor country, democratization is impossible."
Democracy is not an isolated and suddenly generated
How does economic development affect the democratic process?
Historial Contextualism, that is, in my opinion, the process of democracy is not isolated and sudden, but a CLUSTER (cluster group) that constitutes a historical association (Historial Linkage) behavior.In the relationship between economic development and democracy, economic behavior finally became the input of political acts (democracy).
In the study, Lip Sett found that the degree of economic development of the country often has a reverse relationship with extremist forces.Throughout the world's political situation, it is not difficult to find a phenomenon that the more poverty, the more powerful the extremist movement, the more poorer, the more powerful the anarchist and fascism.Why does this happen?The reason is simple: the slow or even retreat of economic development will lead to low or decline in national income. At this time, the dissatisfaction of the people will be strengthened, and that is the social foundation that the political extremism depends on.
On the contrary, with the growth of wealth and education in economic growth, the low -level class can look longer and the political views will be more complicated., Make them difficult to accept extremist ideas.This also explains why the richer the richer country is, the more there is no market, even if the country is far from a democratic country.In this regard, the Islamic world that has fallen in the Iranian revolution in 1978 is the most typical.The most active countries of extreme original faculty are mostly economic and backward countries and regions such as Afghanistan, Sudan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.On the contrary, in a wealthy country such as UAE, Kuwait, and Barin, although there is no democracy, we can also see that extreme thinkers have almost no market here.The most typical example is Saudi Arabia. Although Osama is a citizen of the country, because the people's life is relatively rich, the leader of this extreme principles has almost no support in his motherland.
Economic prosperity determines citizen values
Alex InKeles and Larry J. Diamond, a well -known American sociologist, further expanded on this basis.They believe that a degree of socioeconomic wealth determines "their citizens' values and attitudes", and they have cultivated the personality of mutual trust, living satisfaction and ability to compete with their ability.Essence
For the evolutionary relationship between the degree of economic development and the degree of democracy, according to my historical context, it can summarize its logical line as: a huge middle class is the product of industrialization and economic growth -withEconomic growth is the growing middle -class team. The growth of the middle class has increased national income, which brings more economic security and improves education.The improvement of education level has made the low -level class learn longer, and the national consciousness has begun to gradually middle class.Followed by its political viewIt has begun to become more complicated, more diverse, and closer to gradualism -when the size of the city's middle class is relatively large, then democratic politics will become stable.
The author is a Chinese economist and a financial columnist
