The relationship between economic development and democracy: Lessons for transition countries

The key preoccupation and focus of the analytical attention of this paper is the consideration of the causative and consequential relations between the political and economic dimension of social life, that is, passing the boundary line between economy and politics. The major debate in this paper is: what is the causal relationship between democracy and economic development? When we are debating the Democracy-Development Nexus, the key finding of the analysis is reflected in the fact that, in spite of what the evidence in the scholarly literature is mixed and inconclusive, there is little disagreement that over time democracy and development are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. Although a strong positive link between the GDP per capita (key indicator of economic development) and the degree of development of the democratic structure in the case of selected transition economies has been confirmed, democracy, however, does not exclusively depend on the state of the economy, and economic weakness does not translate directly into the impossibility of democracy.