Processes and mechanisms of democratization

Unlike Artistotle's analysis, recent treatments of democratization identify pathways and propose necessary conditions but fall short of specifying cau se-effect relations. Democratization does not follow a single path, and is unlikely to have universally applicable necessary or sufficient conditions. A political process analysis of democratization defines it as movement tow ard broad citizenship, equal citizenship, binding consultation of citizens, and protection of citizens from arbitrary state action. High levels of all four elements depend on a significant degree of state capacity. Democratiz ation emerges from interacting changes in public politics, categorical ineq uality, and networks of trust, which in turn depend on specifiable mechanis ms of change in social relations. When the shocks of conquest, confrontatio n, colonization, and revolution promote democratization, they do so by acce lerating the same causal mechanisms. The next round of research and theory on democratization requires identification, verification, and connection of the relevant causal mechanisms.