Democratic theory

Late in the 20th century, some political scientists rediscovered their Aristotelian roots by returning to the question of how to achieve the good, just, and stable polity - that is, by returning to the study of democracy. Although the approaches taken were highly diverse, most researchers attempted to identify the factors by which democracies are established and sustained. Democratic theory was revived in earnest in the late 1980s, when communist regimes were collapsing throughout Eastern Europe, and was accompanied by the founding of the influential “Journal of Democracy” in 1990.

The American political theorist Robert Dahl, who had long been a scholar of the topic, viewed democracy as the pluralist interplay of groups in what he called a “polyarchy.” Historical-cultural thinkers such as Lipset traced the origins of democracy to the values that democratic societies developed long ago. Samuel Huntington, perhaps the most influential post-World War II American political scientist, worried about a “democratic distemper” in which citizens demand more than the system can deliver. Huntington also viewed democracy as coming in waves - the most recent having started in 1974 in Greece and Portugal and having subsequently washed over Spain and Latin America - but warned of a potential reverse wave toward authoritarianism. The Spanish American political scientist Juan Linz explored how democracies can decline, and the Dutch-born American scholar Arend Lijphart considered the institutional arrangements (political parties and electoral systems, executives and parliaments) that were most likely to produce stable political systems.

Modernization theorists noted the connection between democracy and economic development but were unable to determine whether economic development typically precedes democracy or vice versa. Few of them regarded democracy as inevitable, and many noted its philosophical, psychological, and social prerequisites, suggesting that democracy may be a largely Western phenomenon that is not easily transplanted to non-Western cultures.

Others, however, argued that democracy is a universal value that transcends culture. Some worried that the legitimacy of established democracies was eroding in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, as citizens became disenchanted with the political process and many moved away from political participation in favor of private pursuits. Voter turnout fell in most countries, in part because citizens saw little difference between the major political parties, believing them to be essentially power-seeking and self-serving. Some attributed this trend to a supposed abandonment of ideology as most parties hewed to centrist positions in order to capture the large moderate vote. Still others argued that party systems, ossified for at least a generation and based on social and political conflicts that had long been resolved, failed to address in a coherent fashion new social issues (e.g., feminism, environmentalism, civil rights) that concerned many citizens.

Some blamed the media for focusing on political scandals instead of issues of substance, and some cited the inability of governments to fully address society’s ills (e.g., crime, drug abuse, unemployment). Nevertheless, not all scholars viewed this change with alarm. Some argued that citizens were generally better-educated and more critical than they were given credit for, that they were simply demanding better, cleaner government, and that these demands would eventually lead to long-term democratic renewal.