Moving beyond the Lipset hypothesis: examining the correlation between economic development and democracy

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Publication Type honors thesis
School or College College of Social & Behavioral Science
Department Political Science
Author Khong, Kevin
Title Moving beyond the Lipset hypothesis: examining the correlation between economic development and democracy
Date 2009-05
Description Following the logic of Seymour Martin Lipset's 1959 hypothesis, the main axis of the Democratic Transitions debate has long been the strong correlation between economic development and democracy. More recent empirical evidence puts in doubt the direct relationship of economic development and democracy in cases where liberal economies are able to persist without the presupposed necessity for a transition to democracy. This thesis seeks to investigate the inconsistencies of the correlation between economic development and democracy. Specifically, why do some countries fail to transition to democracy despite having high economic development, and why do some countries fail at developing economically after transitioning to democracy? My findings reject the preconceived notion that economic development and democracy are directly intertwined, and propose that certain conditions of political stability and political legitimacy are required to produce the positive correlation between the two and explain the role of political institutions in explaining these inconsistencies.
Type Text
Publisher University of Utah
Subject Political culture; South Korea; Politics
Dissertation Institution University of Utah
Dissertation Name Honors BS
Language eng
Relation is Version of Digital reproduction of "Moving beyond the Lipset hypothesis: examining the correlation between economic development and democracy," J. Willard Marriott Library Special Collections JQ3.5 2009 .K46
Rights Management (c) Kevin Khong, To comply with copyright, the file for this work may be restricted to The University of Utah campus libraries pending author permission.
Format Medium application/pdf
Format Extent 626,829 bytes
Identifier us-etd2,149673
Source Original: University of Utah J. Willard Marriott Library Special Collections
Conversion Specifications Original scanned on Epson GT-30000 as 400 dpi to pdf using ABBYY FineReader 9.0 Professional Edition.
ARK ark:/87278/s6fj2x91
Setname ir_etd
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Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6fj2x91