Seymour Martin Lipset

Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy

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 presenting 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. This growing field has dealt largely with the internal analysis of organizations with political goals, or with the determinants of action within various political institutions, such as parties, government agencies, or the electoral process. It has in the main left to the political philosopher the larger concern with the relations of the total political system to society as a whole.

The Social Requisites of Democracy Revisited

The recent expansion of democracy, what Samuel Huntington (1991) has called „the third wave,“ started in the mid-1970s, first in southern Europe, then throughout Latin America and Asian countries like Korea, Thailand and the Philippines in the early and mid-1980s, as well as in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and parts of sub-Saharan Africa in the same period. Not long ago, the overwhelming majority of the members of the United Nations had authoritarian systems. As of 1993 over half, 99 out of 186 countries, have competitive elections and various guarantees of political and individual rights, over twice the number two decades earlier in 1970 (Freedom Review, 1993, 3–4, 10). Democracy is weakest in Islamic countries, where, as will be discussed later, few nations are democratic, and in parts of Africa. However, through not fully democratic, „more than 30 African countries are in the process of transition from an authoritarian civilian or military government to one that is more pluralistic“ (Schneidman, 1992, 1; Diamond, 1992b, 38–39; Diamond, 1993b 3–4).*

ARE SOCIAL CLASSES DYING

New forms of social stratification are emerging. Much of our thinking about stratification - from Marx, Weber, and others - must be recast to capture these new developments. Social class was the key theme of past stratification work. Yet class is an increasingly outmoded concept. Class stratification implies that people can be differentiated hierarchically on one or more criteria into distinct layers, classes. Class analysis has grown increasingly inadequate in recent decades as traditional hierarchies have declined and new social differences have emerged. The cumulative impact of these changes is fundamentally altering the nature of social stratification - placing past theories in need of substantial modification. This paper outlines first some general propositions about the sources of class stratification and its decline. The decline of hierarchy, and its spread across situses, is emphasised. The general propositions are applied to political parties and ideological cleavages, the economy, the family, and social mobility. These developments appear most clearly in North America and Western Europe, but our propositions also help interpret some of the tensions and factors driving change in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and other societies.

THE DECLINING POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF SOCIAL CLASS

Social classes have not died, but their political significance has declined substantially; this justifies a shift from class-centred analysis towards multi-causal explanations of political behaviour and related social phenomena. This contribution extends key propositions from Clark and Lipset and adds new empirical evidence to the commentaries by Hout et al. and Pakulski. Four general propositions are stated concerning where and why class is weaker or stronger. The propositions are then applied to several areas, considering how class has weakened in its impact, especially on politics. We cite several writers of Marxist background to show how they have converged with others in interpreting central developments. The paper notes the impact of organisations like parties and unions, independent of classes, in affecting political processes. It points to the rise of the welfare state as generally weakening class conflict by providing a safety-net and benefits. The diversification of the occupational structure toward small firms, high tech and services weakens class organisational potentials. So does more affluence. Political parties have correspondingly shifted from class conflict to non-economic issues like the environment. The Socialist and Communist Parties have drastically altered their programmes in dozens of countries, away from traditional class politics toward new social issues, and often even toward constraining government. New nationalist parties have arisen stressing national identity and limiting immigration. These developments cumulatively weaken class politics.

Democracy in developing countries : Latin America

This text reflects improvements in democratic trends and the erosion of democratic advances in different countries. It regards political actors and institutions, and is concerned about the impact on democratic consolidation of economic constraints, weak states, judicial inefficacy and inequality.

Radicalism or Reformism: The Sources of Working-class Politics

From my work on my doctoral dissertation (Lipset 1950, 1968) down to the present, I have been interested in the problem of “American exceptionalism.” That curious phrase emerged from the debate in the international Communist movement in the 1920s concerning the sources of the weakness of left-wing radical movements in the United States (Draper 1960, pp. 268-72; Lipset 1977a, pp. 107-61). The key question repeatedly raised in this context has been, is America qualitatively different from other industrial capitalist countries? Or, to use Sombarts words, “Why is there no Socialism in the United States?” (Sombart 1976). In a forthcoming book, I evaluate the hypotheses advanced by various writers from Karl Marx onward to explain the absence of an effective socialist party on the American political scene. (For a preliminary formulation, see Lipset 1977b, pp. 31-149, 346-63.) If any of the hypotheses are valid, they should also help to account for the variation among working-class movements in other parts of the world. In this article, therefore, I shall reverse the emphasis from that in my book and look at socialist and working-class movements comparatively, applying elsewhere some of the propositions that have been advanced to explain the American situation.

The Value Patterns of Democracy: A Case Study in Comparative Analysis

Differentiating the core values of nations in terms of their relative emphases on some of the pattern-variables permits the comparative analyst to interpret the links between national institutions and the central value systems. An analysis of the relationship between political institutions and the value systems of the four largest English-speaking democracies-Australia, Canada, Great Britain, and the United States-illustrates this general thesis. Though all are urban, industrial, stable democracies, the institutions sustaining their political structures vary greatly. The United States is egalitarian and populist, Great Britain is deferential and elitist, while Canada and Australia fall in between. Phenomena such as popular respect for the law, civil liberties, and party systems may be viewed as derivative from the value systems.

The state of American sociology

Sociology appears to be one of the most internally divided disciplines, if not the most. Departmental struggles, which have led to sociologists complaining to administrators about each other, have put the field in bad repute among campus officials and have endangered its survival in some schools. The American Sociological Society and American Sociological Association have been among the most conflict-ridden associations in academe for generations. Severe internecine struggles have a long history in the field. It may be suggested that they are related to the propensity of the field to attract social reformers and political activists. But hard evidence indicates sociology graduate students are among the weakest, as judged by test scores.

Reexamining democracy : essays in honor of Seymour Martin Lipset

Foreword - Robert K Merton Notes on the Young Lipset Seymour Martin Lipset and the Study of Democracy - Larry Diamond and Gary Marks PART ONE: THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES Democracy in Permanently Divided Systems - James S Coleman Democracy as Political Competition - Kaare Strom Rational Sources of Chaos in Democratic Transition - Gary Marks On the Place of Virtues in a Pluralistic Democracy - Amitai Etzioni The Concept of National Development, 1917-1989 - Immanuel Wallerstein Elegy and Requiem PART TWO: COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES Economic Development and Democracy Reconsidered - Larry Diamond Capitalism, the Market, and Democracy - Carlos H Waisman Interest Systems and the Consolidation of Democracies - Philippe C Schmitter Change and Continuity in the Nature of Contemporary Democracies - Juan J Linz Two New Nations - Amos Perlmutter Israeli and American Foreign Policies PART THREE: POLITICS AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN AMERICAN DEMOCRACY State Formation and Social Policy in the United States - Theda Skocpol The Insurgent Origins of Union Democracy - Maurice Zeitlin Class, Race, and Higher Education in America - Martin Trow Inequality and American Culture - Ann Swidler The Persistence of Voluntarism Off With Their Heads - William Schneider The Confidence Gap and the Revolt Against Professionalism in American Politics

University students and politics in underdeveloped countries

The tasks of the universities in the underdeveloped countries of the world are fundamentally not very different from what they are in more highly developed societies. They must transmit in a more differentiated and more specific way the cultural heritage -the history, the scientific knowledge, the literature-of their society and of the world culture of which their society is a part; they must train persons who will become members of the elites of their societies to exercise skills in science, technology, management and administration; they must cultivate the capacity for leadership and a sense of responsibility to their fellow countrymen and they must train them to be constructively critical, to be able to initiate changes while appreciating what they have inherited. The universities must contribute new knowledge to the worlds pool of knowledge and must stimulate in some of the students, at least, the desire to become original contributors to this pool, as well as equipping them with the knowledge and discipline which, given adequate endowment, will enable them to do so. Regardless of whether the university system seeks to educate only a very small fraction of the stratum of university age or a quite large proportion, these tasks remain the indispensable minimum. A university system which fails to perform these functions, however