Politics in Developing Countries: Comparing Experiences with Democracy

Diamond, Larry, Juan J. Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset (eds.). Politics in Developing Countries: Comparing Experiences with Democracy, 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1995. 592 pp.

This book derives from a study of 26 countries originally published in 1988 and 1989 as three volumes under the title Democracy in Developing Countries. Like the first edition, it has ten case studies from four regions: Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Only one new case study was added: South Africa. And also like the first edition, this one is intended for use in a course on comparative politics.

The original three-volume work is in practically every decent library, is constantly cited, and is considered by most political scientists to be a classic. Little is different in this current volume from the first edition or even from the 1988-89 original. Some of the facts have been updated, but apparently there is no reason to update the theory. The three editors present their views as though there are no alternatives, and they do, indeed, represent the mainstream political science view of democracy as marked by elections, citizen participation, and civil liberties.

All the contributors are highly respected, mainstream political scientists, such as Arturo Valenzuela (writing on Chile), who was on leave as professor of government and director of the Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown University to be the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs in the U.S. Department of State at the publishing of this book. You can't get much more establishment than that! Christian Coulon (Senegal) is co-director of the Center of Black African Studies at the University of Bordeaux. Steven Friedman (South Africa) is director of the Johannesburg-based Centre for Policy Studies and is highly respected in South African academic circles. Bolivar Lamounier (Brazil) is co-founder of the Instituto de Estudos Economicos, Sociais a Politicos de Sao Paulo, a member of the Brazilian Presidential Commission for Constitution Studies and several other Brazilian high-level commissions. Ergun Ozbudun (Turkey) is a professor at the prestigious Bilkent University in Ankara. David I. Steinberg (Korea) was formerly Distinguished Professor Korean Studies at Georgetown University. And so forth and so on. Of course, we all know the brand-name sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset. Along with Lipset, Larry Diamond is at the Hoover Institution, and Juan J. Linz is Sterling Professor of Political Social Science at Yale University. Why would anyone even need to review this book?

I know I'm violating one of the cardinal rules of book reviewing by not discussing the contents of the book, but with such recognizable names who cares what they write. Besides apparently nothing new has happened in the political science of democracy since 1989. And anyhow there is no alternative textbook. Okay, I'll say something about the introductory chapter.

The introductory chapter by the editors discusses the relationships between democracy and other aspects of society, such as ethnicity and regionalism, leadership, the military, political parties, socioeconomic classes, volunteer organizations, etc. The editors point out that they began the original study in 1985, "a decade after the toppling of Western Europe's last three dictatorships (in Portugal, Spain, and Greece), which launched what Samuel Huntington has called the `third wave' of global democratic expansion" (p. 1). Samuel Huntington. Well, what kind of name-dropping can anyone expect from the brandnames themselves? They also point out, "Globally the number of democracies in the world has more than doubled since 1974" (p. 1). Clearly there is a market for a textbook on democracy in the Third World. And in addition to Brazil, Chile, Korea, Senegal, South Africa, and Turkey, the book covers India, Mexico, Nigeria, and Thailand. I don't know of any competing textbook-though I would love to see one.

Robert Lawless

Wichita State University

Copyright Association of Third World Studies, Inc. Spring 2000
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