Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
As in other matters of this kind, we immediately come up against a stumbling-block of terminology. This is to be expected since the objective investigations that we are making require an objective terminology, whereas the subjective discussions customary in these matters are served well enough by a subjective terminology drawn from everyday language. For example, everyone recognizes that at the present time ‘democracy’ is tending to become the political system of all civilized peoples. But what is the precise meaning of this term ‘democracy’? It is even more vague than the vaguest of terms, ‘religion.’
(Vilfredo Pareto, 1916)The richest countries today are, with very few exceptions, liberal democracies. They are liberal in the sense that their citizens possess rights that guarantee them the freedom to go and do as they wish. They are democracies in that their citizens exercise significant control over the state. In the poorest countries, one or both attributes of liberal democracy are often missing.
With the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 and in the Soviet Union two years later, it appeared that capitalism and liberal democracy had triumphed over planned economies and dictatorial governments. The speed with which the former communist countries adopted market and democratic institutions suggested that their citizens believed that these institutions were best suited for meeting their needs and improving their welfare. As poor countries develop, they too could be expected to become liberal democracies.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.