A revised version of modernization theory implies that certain cultural variables (deeply-
instilled attitudes among the public of a society) play an important role in democratization …

Recent findings by Inglehart and Welzel indicate that emancipative mass attitudes show a
significantly positive effect on subsequent democracy, controlling for previous democracy …

In this vein, Harold Lasswell (1951: 473, 484, 502) claimed that whether democratic regimes
emerge and survive largely depends on mass beliefs. Similarly, when Seymour Martin …

How middle-class economic dependence on the state impedes democratization and
contributes to authoritarian resilience Conventional wisdom holds that the rising middle …

Debates over democratization's causes, roots, requisites, and impedi-ments lie at the center
of contemporary social science. No major school of thought or social science paradigm fails …

This article discusses methodological problems related to operationalizing substantive
definitions of democracy. The article argues that index-constructors need to be particularly …

For decades, scholars of political culture have held that mass political attitudes have a
profound impact on the process of democratization. In studying this impact, an increasing …

We review the literature on the relation between socio-economic development and political
democracy, a field that is commonly known as modernization theory. Guided by the seminal …

It is striking that in all of the rich literature on democracy and democratic transitions
published in recent years, including in the Journal of Democracy, it is difficult to find a single …

The initial optimism that greeted the onset of the “Third Wave” of democratization has cooled
with the instability of many new democracies and the proliferation of stable competitive …