The Democratic Century

The Democratic Century by Seymour Martin Lipset and Jason M. Lakin (University of Oklahoma Press, 478 pp., $34.95). Over the past half century, the political sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset has produced a prodigious body of work--both authoritative and highly readable--on a mind-boggling array of subjects, from Canadian socialism to American exceptionalism, from the internal politics of universities and trade unions to the history of extremist movements in the United States. Now the University of Oklahoma Press has published an expanded version of three lectures Lipset delivered in the mid-1990s that synthesize many of the themes with which he has dealt during his career.

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Among Lipset's accomplishments is the success he had as a mentor to several generations of scholars. This volume owes its appearance to the faithful work of a student, Jason Lakin, who completed the text following a debilitating stroke that Lipset suffered in 2001.

The book is divided into two sections. The first returns to the comparative political analysis Lipset first developed in the 1950s and brought together in his seminal volumes Political Man and The First New Nation. The analysis has even more resonance today in light of the "third wave" of democracy that began over a decade after The First New Nation was published. In this first section, Lipset examines the ways in which democratic countries differ from nondemocratic ones: how institutions that constitute democracy interact with one another, how political parties develop in new democracies, why the quality of civil societies matters more than the mere existence of civic associations, the centrality of legitimacy to the success of democratic regimes, and the relation between democracy and capitalism.

Lipset has long been interested in the linkage between cultural factors and the quality of democracy. The Democratic Century demonstrates that cultures incompatible with democratic values--such as tolerance of political opposition and acceptance of a secular sphere--must find a way to incorporate those principles if they are to democratize. Still, the book concludes, "in the long run, most cultures appear to have the potential to converge with democratic culture."

The second part of The Democratic Century applies Lipset's analytical framework to Latin America, following his pathbreaking comparative analysis of the United States and Canada, which showed how two countries on the same continent could have such different social and political systems. The strong emphasis is upon historical factors, including not only the differing patterns of colonization and struggles for independence but also on the values and institutions that characterized the colonizing countries. In contrast to Britain's relatively laissez-faire approach to its colonies, Spain created tight regulations that promoted unequal distribution of property and a legacy of statist economic control. Such historical factors interact with cultural, structural, and institutional ones to explain why (with a few exceptions: Chile, Costa Rica, and Uruguay) the countries of the region have experienced repeated cycles of democratization and breakdown.

Is The Democratic Century optimistic about the world's prospects for democracy? On the one hand, a global consensus has developed around the need for market-oriented strategies. On the other, the steady growth of civil society has not been matched by strong and durable political parties. Cultural factors also present a mixed picture. Still, we can all be grateful to Lipset and Lakin for improving our understanding of the challenges that lie ahead.

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