The State and Democratization: The United States in Comparative Perspective

In: British journal of political science, Band 34, Heft 2, S. 193-210

Abstract

In this article, we defend the importance of the concept of 'stateness' in scholarly understanding of political democratization. We argue that because processes of political democratization in different spatio-temporal settings often share important similarities they are therefore comparable. We investigate this proposition by comparing the process of American political democratization with those of other liberal democracies, old & new. We review extant accounts of the historical process of American democratization -- including those addressing American exceptionalism, class structures, multiple traditions, social movements, & international pressures -- before presenting an alternative comparative account based on the idea of stateness. Attention to stateness problems defined along legal, bureaucratic, & ideological dimensions & derived from both the classic Weberian perspective on the state & the more recent 'third wave' of democratization theory help to place the long American experience of democratization in comparative perspective. This finding illuminates some of the common political challenges in the construction of liberal democracies, old & new. Adapted from the source document.