Economic development and the transition to democracy a formal model

In this essay, we have developed a rational choice model to study the transition to democracy. Such a model implies that the change or maintenance of a political system is the result of rational decisions by individuals, interest groups, and political parties under specific constraints. Our analysis shows that political systems are critically dependent upon the level of economic development. If a nation is at the lower stage of economic development, and, particularly, if its citizenry is poorly educated, the nation would lean toward choosing a dictatorship. As the nation accumulates more and more reproducible capital, it will tend to move toward democracy. Similarly, the model shows that, as the cost of democracy becomes lower and lower over time, a democratic system is likely to be chosen as the political infrastructure for social and economic development. Received: 15 February 1995 / Accepted: 23 June 1997