Summary: Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics, by Seymour Martin Lipset. London : Heinemann, 1960
Political Man by Seymour Martin Lipset (1960) majorly explain the requisites to sustain democracy. He argues that economic development (wealth, industrialization, urbanization, and education) facilitates democracy by influencing political culture and class structure.
Learning from history, Lipset emphasized that a high level of education is necessary but not yet sufficient to sustain democracy. Better education will help people to broaden outlook, to be more tolerant, restrain them from extreme doctrines and increase their capacity to electoral choices which eventually lead them to construct a more democratic political culture.
Moreover, he also emphasized that economic development will drive lower class to a larger middle-income class through an increased income, greater economic security and higher education. This is important because a big middle class is capable of rewarding moderate and democratic parties and penalizing extremist parties, whereas lower class society is prone to political extremism due to growing inequality and status distinction.
Besides economic development, Lipset argues that the stability of democratic system also depends on the legitimacy “the capacity of a political system to engender and maintain the belief that existing political institutions are the most appropriate or proper ones for the society”. Analyzing from the history, the table on the relationship of effectiveness and legitimacy highlights that without effectiveness, countries can remain democratic, yet without legitimacy, countries lost their freedom i.e. Germany, Austria, and Spain.
Democracy is also best served with a high degree of participation by providing opportunities to voluntary organizations. A bigger number of civil societies involved will affect the check and balance of the state. Moreover, apathetic, unaware, and uninterested citizen will lead to weak consensus and loyalty to the whole system.
Not only highlighting the weakness of socialism in the US, Lipset, in the end, argue that social classes have not died, but their political significance has declined substantially.
Learning from history, Lipset emphasized that a high level of education is necessary but not yet sufficient to sustain democracy. Better education will help people to broaden outlook, to be more tolerant, restrain them from extreme doctrines and increase their capacity to electoral choices which eventually lead them to construct a more democratic political culture.
Moreover, he also emphasized that economic development will drive lower class to a larger middle-income class through an increased income, greater economic security and higher education. This is important because a big middle class is capable of rewarding moderate and democratic parties and penalizing extremist parties, whereas lower class society is prone to political extremism due to growing inequality and status distinction.
Besides economic development, Lipset argues that the stability of democratic system also depends on the legitimacy “the capacity of a political system to engender and maintain the belief that existing political institutions are the most appropriate or proper ones for the society”. Analyzing from the history, the table on the relationship of effectiveness and legitimacy highlights that without effectiveness, countries can remain democratic, yet without legitimacy, countries lost their freedom i.e. Germany, Austria, and Spain.
Democracy is also best served with a high degree of participation by providing opportunities to voluntary organizations. A bigger number of civil societies involved will affect the check and balance of the state. Moreover, apathetic, unaware, and uninterested citizen will lead to weak consensus and loyalty to the whole system.
Not only highlighting the weakness of socialism in the US, Lipset, in the end, argue that social classes have not died, but their political significance has declined substantially.
Comments
Post a Comment