Political Parties a Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies Of

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Political Parties a Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies Of Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Political Parties A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy by Robert Political Parties : A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy by Robert Michels. Our systems have detected unusual traffic activity from your network. Please complete this reCAPTCHA to demonstrate that it's you making the requests and not a robot. If you are having trouble seeing or completing this challenge, this page may help. If you continue to experience issues, you can contact JSTOR support. Block Reference: #e466a3a0-d0b2-11eb-b552-bdb4007bc8ad VID: #(null) IP: 116.202.236.252 Date and time: Sat, 19 Jun 2021 04:00:31 GMT. User Search limit reached - please wait a few minutes and try again. In order to protect Biblio.com from unauthorized automated bot activity and allow our customers continual access to our services, we may limit the number of searches an individual can perform on the site in a given period of time. We try to be as generous as possible, but generally attempt to limit search frequency to that which would represent a typical human's interactions. If you are seeing this message, please wait a couple of minutes and try again. If you think that you've reached this page in error, please let us know at [email protected]. If you are an affiliate, and would like to integrate Biblio search results into your site, please contact [email protected] for information on accessing our inventory APIs. Can you guess which first edition cover the image above comes from? What was Dr. Seuss’s first published book? Take a stab at guessing and be entered to win a $50 Biblio gift certificate! Read the rules here. This website uses cookies. We use cookies to remember your preferences such as preferred shipping country and currency, to save items placed in your shopping cart, to track website visits referred from our advertising partners, and to analyze our website traffic. Privacy Details. Elpidio Valdes. If the people only knew how the world truly worked, there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning! The Iron Law of Oligarchy by Robert Michels. It’s time for some RealPolitik! Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy is a book by the sociologist Robert Michels, published in 1911 and first introducing the concept of iron law of oligarchy. This work analyses the power structures of organizations such as political parties and trade unions. Michels’s main argument is that all organizations, even those in theory most egalitarian and most committed to democracy – like socialist political parties – are in fact oligarchical, and dominated by a small group of leadership. Let me share some of favorite parts: Part 1: Leadership in Democratic Organizations. Democracy is inconceivable without organization . … Organization, based as it is upon the principle of least effort, that is to say, upon the greatest possible economy of energy, is the weapon of the weak in their struggle with the strong. The chances of success in any struggle will depend upon the degree to which this struggle is carried out upon a basis of solidarity between individuals whose interests are identical. Pg. 61. It is undeniable that these educational institutions for the officials of the party and of the labor organizations tend, above all, towards the artificial creation of an élite of the working class, of a caste of cadets composed of persons who aspire to the command of the proletarian rank and file. Without wishing it, there is thus affected a continuous enlargement of the gulf which divides the leaders from the masses. Thus the leaders, who were at first no more than the executive organs of the collective will, soon emancipate themselves from the masses and become independent of its control. Organization implies a tendency to oligarchy. In every organization, whether it be a political party, a professional union, or any other association of the kind, the aristocratic tendency manifests itself very clearly. … As a result of organization, every party or professional union becomes divided into a minority of directors and a majority of directed . With the advance of organization, democracy tends to decline . Pg. 70. Every party organization which has attained to a considerable degree of complication demands that there should be a certain number of persons who devote all their activities tot he work of the party. For democracy, however, the first appearance of professional leadership marks the beginning of the end . Pg. 73. Part 3: The Exercise of Power and its Psychological Reaction Upon the Leaders. The apathy of the masses and their need for guidance has as its counterpart in the leaders a natural greed for power. Thus the development of the democratic oligarchy is accelerated by the general characteristics of human nature . What was initiated by the need for organization, administration, and strategy is completed by psychological determinism. Pg. 205. It was a tenet of the old aristocracy that to disobey the orders of the monarch was to sin against God. In modern democracy it is held that no one may disobey the orders of the oligarchs, for in so doing the people sin against themselves , Pg. 216. Part 4: Social Analysis of Leadership. Moreover, a sense of fatalism and a sad conviction of impotence exercise a paralyzing influence in social life. As long as an oppressed class is influenced by this fatalistic spirit, as long as it has failed to develop an adequate sense of social injustices, it is incapable of aspiring towards emancipation. It is not the simple existence of oppressive conditions, but it is the recognition of these conditions by the oppressed, which in the course of history has constituted the prime factor of class struggles. Pg. 228. Socialists leaders, considered in respect of their social origin, may be divided into two classes, those who belong primarily to the proletariat, and those derived from the bourgeoisie, or rather from the intellectual stratum of the bourgeoisie. Pg. 238. When he abandons manual work for intellectual, the worker undergoes another transformation which involves his whole existence. He gradually leaves the proletariat to become a member of the petty bourgeois class. Pg. 262. To sum up, it may be said that these former working-class people, considered as families and not as individuals, are absorbed sooner or later into the new bourgeois environment. The children receive a bourgeois education; they attend better schools than those to which their father had access; their interests are bourgeois and they very rarely recall the revolutionary and anti-bourgeois derivation of their own entrance into the bourgeoisie. The working-class families which have been raised by the revolutionary workers to a higher social position, for the purpose of a more effective struggle against bourgeoisie, thus come before long to be fused with the bourgeoisie. Pg. 265. The workman’s ideal is to become a petty bourgeois . Pg. 271. Part 6: Synthesis: The Oligarchical Tendencies of Organization. Political organization leads to power. But power is always conservative . Pg. 333. no highly developed social order is possible without a “political class”, that is to say, a politically dominant class, the class of a minority. … all phrases representing the idea of the rule of the masses, such terms as state, civic rights, popular representation, nation, are descriptive merely of a legal principle, and do not correspond to any actually existing facts . Pg. 342. Society cannot exist without a “dominant” or “political” class , and that the ruling class, while its elements are subjects to a frequent partial renewal, nevertheless constitutes the only of sufficiently durable efficacy in the history of human development. According to this view, the government, or, if the phrase be preferred, the state, cannot be anything other than the organization of a minority . It is the aim of this minority to impose upon the rest of society a “legal order”, which is the outcome of the exigencies of dominion and the exploration of the masses of helots effected by the ruling minority, and can never be truly representative of the majority. The majority is thus permanently incapable of self-government . … Thus the majority of human being, in a condition of eternal tutelage, are predestined by tragic necessity to submit to the dominion of a small minority, and must be content to constitute the pedestal of an oligarchy . Pgs. 353-354. Every system of leadership is incompatible with the most essential postulates of democracy … the principle cause of oligarchy in the democratic parties is to be found in the technical indispensability of leadership … It is organizations which gives birth to the dominion of the elected over the electors, of the mandataries over the mandators, of the delegates over the delegators. Who says organization, says oligarchy . Pgs. 364-365. Political Parties : A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy. The principle of self-government through political parties, the cornerstone of democracy, has come to be regarded as a solution to the problem of nationality. This is because the principle of nationality entails the acceptance of the idea of popular government. The importance of the principle of nationality is undeniable, and most of the national questions of Western Europe might be solved in accordance with this principle. Matters are complicated by geographical and strategical considerations, such as the difficulty of determining natural frontiers and the frequent need to establish strategic frontiers. Moreover, the principle of nationality cannot help us where nationalities barely exist or where they are entangled in inextricable confusion. The present work is a critical discussion of the problem of democracy. Michels believes that democracy, as an intellectual theory and as a practical movement, has entered upon a critical phase from which exit will be extremely difficult.
Recommended publications
  • Direct E-Democracy and Political Party Websites: in the United States and Sweden
    Rochester Institute of Technology RIT Scholar Works Theses 5-1-2015 Direct E-Democracy and Political Party Websites: In the United States and Sweden Kirk M. Winans Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.rit.edu/theses Recommended Citation Winans, Kirk M., "Direct E-Democracy and Political Party Websites: In the United States and Sweden" (2015). Thesis. Rochester Institute of Technology. Accessed from This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by RIT Scholar Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses by an authorized administrator of RIT Scholar Works. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Running head: E-DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTY WEBSITES Direct E-Democracy and Political Party Websites: In the United States and Sweden by Kirk M. Winans Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Graduation Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science Science, Technology and Public Policy Department of Public Policy College of Liberal Arts Rochester Institute of Technology May 1, 2015 E-DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTY WEBSITES Direct E-Democracy and Political Party Websites: In the United States and Sweden A thesis submitted to The Public Policy Department at Rochester Institute of Technology By Kirk M. Winans Under the faculty guidance of Franz Foltz, Ph.D. Submitted by: Kirk M. Winans Signature Date Accepted by: Dr. Franz Foltz Thesis Advisor, Graduate Coordinator Signature Date Associate Professor, Dept. of STS/Public Policy Rochester Institute of Technology Dr. Rudy Pugliese Committee Member Signature Date Professor, School of Communication Rochester Institute of Technology Dr. Ryan Garcia Committee Member Signature Date Assistant Professor, Dept.
    [Show full text]
  • Freedom of Association with Regard to Political
    Freedom of Association with regard to Political Parties and Civil Society in the Middle East, North Africa, and the Gulf: A literature review By Mona Marshy, PhD [email protected] (613) 236-1571 For International Development Research Centre (IDRC) 250 Albert Street Ottawa, ON K1G 3H9 April 2005 1 Table of Contents I. Introduction.....................................................................................................................................2 II. Freedom of association – A literature review............................................................................3 Democratization ..............................................................................................................................3 Definition and legal framework of the right to freedom of association:.................................5 What is the state of the right to freedom of association in the Arab world?..........................7 Assessing the efficacy of civil societies.........................................................................................9 Links between civil society, political parties, and democratization n.....................................16 Political parties in the Middle East and North Africa..............................................................18 Political participation in Gulf states............................................................................................21 Islamic movements and democratization ..................................................................................22
    [Show full text]
  • ESS9 Appendix A3 Political Parties Ed
    APPENDIX A3 POLITICAL PARTIES, ESS9 - 2018 ed. 3.0 Austria 2 Belgium 4 Bulgaria 7 Croatia 8 Cyprus 10 Czechia 12 Denmark 14 Estonia 15 Finland 17 France 19 Germany 20 Hungary 21 Iceland 23 Ireland 25 Italy 26 Latvia 28 Lithuania 31 Montenegro 34 Netherlands 36 Norway 38 Poland 40 Portugal 44 Serbia 47 Slovakia 52 Slovenia 53 Spain 54 Sweden 57 Switzerland 58 United Kingdom 61 Version Notes, ESS9 Appendix A3 POLITICAL PARTIES ESS9 edition 3.0 (published 10.12.20): Changes from previous edition: Additional countries: Denmark, Iceland. ESS9 edition 2.0 (published 15.06.20): Changes from previous edition: Additional countries: Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden. Austria 1. Political parties Language used in data file: German Year of last election: 2017 Official party names, English 1. Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs (SPÖ) - Social Democratic Party of Austria - 26.9 % names/translation, and size in last 2. Österreichische Volkspartei (ÖVP) - Austrian People's Party - 31.5 % election: 3. Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ) - Freedom Party of Austria - 26.0 % 4. Liste Peter Pilz (PILZ) - PILZ - 4.4 % 5. Die Grünen – Die Grüne Alternative (Grüne) - The Greens – The Green Alternative - 3.8 % 6. Kommunistische Partei Österreichs (KPÖ) - Communist Party of Austria - 0.8 % 7. NEOS – Das Neue Österreich und Liberales Forum (NEOS) - NEOS – The New Austria and Liberal Forum - 5.3 % 8. G!LT - Verein zur Förderung der Offenen Demokratie (GILT) - My Vote Counts! - 1.0 % Description of political parties listed 1. The Social Democratic Party (Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs, or SPÖ) is a social above democratic/center-left political party that was founded in 1888 as the Social Democratic Worker's Party (Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei, or SDAP), when Victor Adler managed to unite the various opposing factions.
    [Show full text]
  • Michels's Iron Law of Oligarchy
    MICHELS’S IRON LAW OF OLIGARCHY Robert Michels ( 1876– 1936), was a young historian who had been unable to get a job in the German university system, despite the recommendation of Max Weber, because he was a member of the Social Democrats. Michels had participated extensively in party activities and had come to the conclusion that the Socialists did not live up to their own ideals. Although the party advocated democracy, it was not internally democratic itself. The revolutionary Marxism of the speeches at conventions and on the floor of the Reichstag was just a way of whipping up support among the workers, while the party leaders built a bureaucratic trade union and party machine to provide sinecures for themselves. Michels’s analysis appeared in 1911 in a book called Political Parties. The phenomenon of party oligarchy was quite general, stated Michels; if internal democracy could not be found in an organization that was avowedly democratic, it would certainly not exist in parties which did not claim to be democratic. This principle was called the Iron Law of Oligarchy, and it constitutes one of the great generalizations about the functioning of mass‐ membership organizations, as subsequent research has borne out. The Iron Law of Oligarchy works as follows: First of all, there is always a rather small number of persons in the organization who actually make decisions, even if the authority is formally vested in the body of the membership at large. The reason for this is purely functional and will be obvious to anyone who has attended a public meeting or even a large committee session.
    [Show full text]
  • Electronic Democracy the World of Political Science— the Development of the Discipline
    Electronic Democracy The World of Political Science— The development of the discipline Book series edited by Michael Stein and John Trent Professors Michael B. Stein and John E. Trent are the co-editors of the book series “The World of Political Science”. The former is visiting professor of Political Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada and Emeritus Professor, McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The latter is a Fellow in the Center of Governance of the University of Ottawa, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and a former professor in its Department of Political Science. Norbert Kersting (ed.) Electronic Democracy Barbara Budrich Publishers Opladen • Berlin • Toronto 2012 An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high quality books Open Access for the public good. The Open Access ISBN for this book is 978-3-86649-546-3. More information about the initiative and links to the Open Access version can be found at www.knowledgeunlatched.org © 2012 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. (CC- BY-SA 4.0) It permits use, duplication, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you share under the same license, give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ © 2012 Dieses Werk ist beim Verlag Barbara Budrich GmbH erschienen und steht unter der Creative Commons Lizenz Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Diese Lizenz erlaubt die Verbreitung, Speicherung, Vervielfältigung und Bearbeitung bei Verwendung der gleichen CC-BY-SA 4.0-Lizenz und unter Angabe der UrheberInnen, Rechte, Änderungen und verwendeten Lizenz.
    [Show full text]
  • Democracy, Organization, Michels Author(S): John D
    Democracy, Organization, Michels Author(s): John D. May Source: The American Political Science Review, Vol. 59, No. 2, (Jun., 1965), pp. 417-429 Published by: American Political Science Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1953059 Accessed: 07/07/2008 11:30 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=apsa. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. http://www.jstor.org DEMOCRACY, ORGANIZATION, MICHELS JOHN D. MAY Yale University This article marks an attempt to clarify the It probably is true that in Michels's terms, teachings of Robert Michels.
    [Show full text]
  • Freedom of Association in the Euro-Mediterranean Region
    FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION IN THE EURO-MEDITERRANEAN REGION MONITORING report 2009 Copenhagen - December 2009 Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network Vestergade 16, 1456 Copenhagen K - Denmark Tel: + 45 32 64 17 00 - Fax: + 45 32 64 17 02 E-mail: [email protected] Website: http://www.euromedrights.org © Copyright 2009 Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network Bibliographic Information: Title: Monitoring Report on Freedom of Association in the Euro-Mediterranean Region – 2009 - Corporate authors: Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN) - Publisher: Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN) - Date of first publication: December 2009 - Pages: 115 - ISBN: 87-91224-45-4 - Translation into Arabic: Ilham Ait Gouraine - Translation into French: Lise Pommier - Translation into English: Marc Forand Drafting, proofreading, editing and coordination: Thibaut Guillet, Anne Czichos, Salma Anwar, Marit Flø Jorgensen, Marc Schade-Poulsen and the EMHRN Working Group on Freedom of Association - Graphic Design: Sarah Raga’ei - Printing: Hellas Grafisk A/S - Cover Photo: Farah Kobaissy - Photography by: Al-Hiwar Tunisian channel, Al-Quds Center for Political Studies, Danny Hammontree, Getty, Families of Algeria’s Disappeared, Farah Kobaissy, Lambada Istanbul, Libya Al-Youm, Neta Oren, Oren Ziv/Activestill.org, The National Association of Unemployed Graduates of Morocco, Thomas Schaffer - Index terms: Freedom of association/ Human Rights/ Minorities/ GONGOS - Geographical terms: Mediterranean Countries/ North Africa/ Middle East This document
    [Show full text]
  • Political Parties and Interest Groups
    Joe Sohm/Visions of America / Getty Images distribute 7 or POLITICAL PARTIES AND INTEREST GROUPS post, After reading this chapter, you should be able to do the following: •• Definepolitical party and identify key players, how they function in the party, and how a political party is distinct from an interest group. •• Examine the history of political party development in the United States and explore the two waves of political reform that weakened party organization. •• Describe how American parties copy,are organized and the impact of party structure on political processes in the United States. •• Understand the causes and effects of a two-party system. •• Define responsible party government and explain why parties in the United States have been successful or unsuccessful in fulfilling this governing doctrine.not •• Defineinterest groups and understand the role each type of group plays in American politics. •• Describe the issues that affect how accurately and equally interest groups represent the concerns of all segments of American society.Do Perspective: How Centralized Can Political Parties Be? The American humorist Will Rogers once quipped, “I am not a member of an organized party. I am a Democrat.” Democratic and Republican Parties in the United States are loosely organized, evolving political groups that have no formal enrollment or membership process; those who wish to work for the party can just show up. Most importantly, no one person or office controls the entire organization. Chuck Schumer is the leader of Democrats in the United States Copyright ©2021 by SAGE Publications, Inc. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher.
    [Show full text]
  • Primary Elections and the Collective Right of Freedom of Association
    Notes Primary Elections and the Collective Right of Freedom of Association The federal courts have yet to articulate a unified doctrine covering state regulation of participation in primary elections.' Such a doctrine must be able to resolve three types of challenges. First, independent voters may challenge a state-mandated closed primary,' claiming that they have a right to vote in that primary election. Second, a political party' may challenge a state-mandated open primary on the grounds that it includes voters lacking a right to participate in that primary election. Finally, a political party may challenge a state-mandated closed primary claiming the state regulations exclude voters who have a right to participate in the primary. The Supreme Court has to date addressed only the first two of these challenges: an independent voter's challenge to a closed primary and a political party's challenge to an open primary. The independent voter's claim of right to be included and the political party's claim of right to exclude cannot be reconciled. The Supreme Court, however, has analyzed 1. The United States Constitution leaves voting qualifications and the manner of conducting pres- idential, congressional, and state elections to state law. U.S. CONsr. art. I, § 2, d. 1; art. 1, § 4, cl.1; amend. X; amend. XVII. The Constitution does impose certain restrictions on states' ability to set voting qualifications. U.S. CONsT. amend. XV (prohibits abridgement of right to vote on account of race); amend. XIX (prohibits abridgement of right to vote on account of sex); amend. XXVI (prohib- its abridgement of right to vote of those eighteen years of age or older on account of age).
    [Show full text]
  • Political Parties in Conflict-Prone Societies
    United Nations University Press is the publishing arm of the United Nations University. UNU Press publishes scholarly and policy-oriented books and periodicals on the issues facing the United Nations and its peoples and member states, with particular emphasis upon international, regional and trans-boundary policies. The United Nations University was established as a subsidiary organ of the United Nations by General Assembly resolution 2951 (XXVII) of 11 December 1972. It functions as an international community of scholars engaged in research, postgraduate training and the dissemination of knowledge to address the pressing global problems of human survival, development and welfare that are the concern of the United Nations and its agencies. Its activities are devoted to advancing knowledge for human security and development and are focused on issues of peace and governance and environment and sustainable development. The Univer- sity operates through a worldwide network of research and training centres and programmes, and its planning and coordinating centre in Tokyo. Political Parties in Conflict-Prone Societies Political Parties in Conflict-Prone Societies: Regulation, Engineering and Democratic Development Edited by Benjamin Reilly and Per Nordlund United Nations a University Press TOKYO u NEW YORK u PARIS 6 Centre for Democratic Institutions (CDI), International Institute for Democ- racy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), and United Nations University (UNU), 2008 The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not
    [Show full text]
  • Political Parties and Presidential Oversight
    2 LIVERMORE 45-134 (DO NOT DELETE) 11/5/2015 9:20 AM POLITICAL PARTIES AND PRESIDENTIAL OVERSIGHT Michael A. Livermore* ABSTRACT .................................................................................................... 46 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 46 I. PRESIDENTS, PARTIES, AND ADMINISTRATION ........................................ 53 A. Executive Restructuring ............................................................. 54 B. Presidential Control in Administrative Law .............................. 58 C. Decline and Rebirth of American Political Parties ................... 62 II. THE MECHANICS OF PRESIDENTIAL OVERSIGHT .................................... 68 A. People Are Policy ...................................................................... 68 B. Parties and Appointments .......................................................... 72 C. Performance, Politics, and the New Patronage ........................ 76 III. PARTIES AND PRESIDENTIAL REPRESENTATION .................................... 80 A. A Simple Model of Presidential Representation ........................ 81 B. Politicians and Groups in Political Parties............................... 86 C. Responsible Party Government ................................................. 93 IV. RELATIONSHIPS WITH CONGRESS .......................................................... 96 A. Shared Oversight ....................................................................... 97 B. Party Discipline in
    [Show full text]
  • Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy Author(S): Seymour Martin Lipset Source: the American Political Science Review, Vol
    Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy Author(s): Seymour Martin Lipset Source: The American Political Science Review, Vol. 53, No. 1 (Mar., 1959), pp. 69-105 Published by: American Political Science Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1951731 . Accessed: 18/06/2013 08:53 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. American Political Science Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The American Political Science Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Tue, 18 Jun 2013 08:53:08 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SOME SOCIAL REQUISITES OF DEMOCRACY: ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND POLITICAL LEGITIMACY' SEYMOUR MARTIN LIPSET University of California, Berkeley The conditions associated with the existence and stability of democratic society have been a leading concern of political philosophy. In this paper the problem is attacked from a sociological and behavioral standpoint, by present- ing a number of hypotheses concerning some social requisites for democracy, and by discussing some of the data available to test these hypotheses. In its concern with conditions-values, social institutions, historical events-external to the political system itself which sustain different general types of political systems, the paper moves outside the generally recognized province of political sociology.
    [Show full text]