Scientists from the University of Copenhagen have found that the economic development of a society rather than democratization can lead to increased authoritarian power. Research published Journal of Economics.
The authors evaluated the prevalence and availability of 29 guns from 1820 to 2010. They found that the success of democratic protests during this period depended heavily on the weapons in power.
As the authors explain, the more protesters the regime can destroy with minimal resources, the stronger it remains. The availability of more advanced weapons generally reduced the chances of the regime’s democratization by 1.3% per year. This difference may seem small, but over the years it becomes significant.
Scientists also noted that previously the availability of weapons increased with democratization and progress, now modern weapons are increasingly in the hands of autocrats who rule less developed countries. Although the world’s poorest countries are by some measures less economically developed than Western Europe two centuries ago, they only have access to a few decades of powerful weapons technology.
Many Western economists and political scientists have assumed that a country’s level of economic development is a determining factor in democratic reforms: When the wealth of the state and its citizens increases, many countries move towards democratization.
The new study confirms that economic modernization is indeed the main driver of democratization, but refutes the idea that democratization happens automatically.
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Source: Gazeta
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