Political scientists and economists have traditionally argued the more economic prosperity a country has, the more democratic it becomes - but Professor Ian MacKenzie from University of Queensland’s School of Economics in Australia says the relationship is not simple.
“When a country’s income is very low, survival is the focus and the marginal benefits of consumption of material goods is very high,” Professor MacKenzie said.
“Essentially, when you don’t have much, an extra dollar is very, very valuable to you.
“Because of that, you won’t invest time in political activism, you’ll invest it in working to increase your income.”
Professor MacKenzie, along with economists Dr Dario Debowicz (Swansea University), Professor Alex Dickson (University of Strathclyde, Glasgow) and Associate Professor Petros Sekeris (Toulouse Business School), looked at data from every country between 1800 to 2010 to analyse their income and democratic score.
They hypothesised the relationship between the income of a country and its level of democracy is not linear but instead forms a U-shape.
Professor MacKenzie said when societies reach a high level of income, the curve shifts towards increased democratisation.
“As income increases, there comes a turning point at which your income has increased so much you start to value improvements in political freedoms,” he said.
“People feel more empowered to challenge authorities.
“A lot of people believe there is no link between income and democracy, or that there is a positive link – as in more income equals more democracy.
“What we’ve shown is that it’s more complicated than that.”
Professor MacKenzie said China was a country to watch in that it has experienced extraordinary economic growth over the past 4 decades while remaining an authoritarian state.
“The U-shaped theory suggests political uprisings could occur if economic growth continues,” he said.
“China has many citizens who are benefitting from the country opening its markets and increasing its GDP (gross domestic product) so there’s a lot of evidence to suggest they may start craving democratic principles.”
Interesting. There's a lot of moving parts to this, so without having a subscription to look at their methods I'll take it with a grain of salt.
One question that comes up just based on history is when the West went through this period of increasing autocracy. The obvious answer of the few centuries before the "age of revolutions" seems funny, because the standard of living was quite possibly lower than in the poorest modern countries.
I think it's pretty clear that the "more wealth means more democracy" theory was never well supported, at least. It seems to have gained acceptance for basically political reasons.