Advanced Industrial Democracies Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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The label advanced industrial democracy (AID) is difficult to define. At its most basic, the label would seem to apply to democracies that are both advanced and industrialized. Yet does the label apply to a specific type of democracy, or only to those countries that are “advanced” in economic terms? Most comparative political scientists and economists have a pretty clear notion of which countries are involved, but they often use these for different comparative purposes.

On the one hand, students of the welfare state focus on AIDs in their research; on the other hand, it is regularly used for public policy analysis in democratic states. The main purpose is to analyze the relationship between democratic politics and representative government, on the one hand, and social and economic policy making within the context of the market economy, on the other hand, particularly the relationship between the size of government and economic growth.

In general, the term AID applies to the members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Most, but not all, members receive this designation. Mexico, South Korea, and Turkey are often not included, and only recently have the formerly communist states Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland been included, though many full members of the European Union like Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and Slovenia, are not. Hence, apparently the level of “democraticness” of a country is a defining characteristic of being an AID. This is confusing, if not inconsistent. For example, post-communist countries all introduced after 1989 a democratic constitution and transformed their economic systems into market economies, but not all of these nations are considered AIDs. Additionally there are doubts about countries like South Korea and Mexico in view of their democratic performances.

The same observation in terms of “advanced” (society) and “modernity” (or industrialization) would seem to apply. Less-developed nations, such as India, South Africa, and Turkey, do not receive the AID label, but they could develop the necessary characteristics at some point in the future. Some of these characteristics include the use of modern technologies, secularization, and a welfare state. Researchers have made an attempt to capture this difference in development by means of the human development index (HDI), which ranks countries by level of development—developed, developing, or underdeveloped—by assessing life expectancy, education/literacy, and standard of living. Yet the HDI is not the sole measure used to determine whether a country has an advanced industrial economy, and it certainly is not used to determine whether a country is a democracy. For instance, oil-rich states (e.g., Venezuela) score relatively high on the HDI but low on industrialization, whereas other countries like Argentina and India move toward industrialization but are slow in democratization.

What then makes a country an AID? In general, as defined in most comparative political science studies, an AID always is a fully fledged democracy in which the rule of law is supreme and a legitimate political authority exists. Examples include Canada in North America, Australia in the southern hemisphere, Japan in the Far East, and most West and Central European countries. Second, an AID is expected to have an open market economy and a welfare state. By defining an AID in this manner, determining whether or not a country is an AID becomes relatively straightforward and allows for meaningful analyses of the relationships between democracy and economy, between market and state, between democratic politics and welfare state development, and between economic development (or growth) and the role of the public economy. These four relationships represent the main, often contested, themes within comparative politics and political economy.

Bibliography:

Esping-Andersen, Gøsta. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Keman, Hans. Comparative Democratic Politics: A Guide to Contemporary Theory and Research. London: Sage, 2002.
Lane, Jan-Erik, and Svante, Oberg. Government and the Economy: A Global Perspective. London: Continuum Books, 2002.
Olson, Mancur. The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982.
Schmidt, Manfred. Demokratietheorien. Wiesbaden, Germany: VS Verlag, 2008.