Political Science Essay

Political Science 101
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Introduction
This paper seeks to elaborate the path to democracy. The question whether politicians should modernize, then democratize will be answered in this paper. Arguments will be based on experiences from South Africa and El Salvador.
Thesis: Politicians desiring democracy should use other methods to democratise, other than follow the Western path of “modernize then democratize”
The transition from a semi-authoritarian or a fully authoritarian political system to a democratic political regime is known as democratization. Democratization is best explained in these two countries using two theories; structural and voluntarist theories. The structural approach to democratization largely involves modernization, industrialization and education in order to eliminate traditional aspects of society and replace them with hierarchies that separate themselves from other structures to form political structures. Voluntarist theories on the other hand, suggest that countries that do not possess modern structural conditions can still achieve democracy if there are favourable political conditions.
The modernization theory suggests that there is a strong relationship between modernization and democracy. It operates under the assumption that wealthier countries are more likely to become democracies due to their level of industrialization and education. Neo-modernization suggests that countries with a higher per capita income have higher chances of achieving democracy. However, this theory does not explain why some wealthy countries are not democracies and some economically challenged countries are democracies.
As a class of structural theories, Marxist theories relate democracy to capitalism. This theory is associated with implication of democracy through use of powerful structural forces against individuals. Marxist strategies are considered to consist of violent processes. Marxist tendencies in In El Salvador are evident in the government’s use of death squads as a strategy to minimize insurgency caused by oppression. Voluntarist theories are best explained when democracy is viewed as a way to counter arbitrary rule and oppression. The need to achieve democracy through voluntarism is fuelled by unique environments in different countries. In South Africa, democracy seemed to be the only option to end racial exclusion and anticommunism.
In an attempt to create a modern environment as a way to provide leadership, the middle class and the wealthy gave rise to repressive political regimes. However these regimes didn’t encourage democracy. Instead they gave rise to insurgent groups that were against oppression from the elite class. Before the civil war in El Salvador, democracy was highly unlikely. This country lacked the civil structure considered by some to be vital in the achievement of democracy. The emergence of elite classes in El Salvador created a wedge between the wealthy and the highly oppressed labourers. Economic superiority in one section of the popula...