Conclusion: moving beyond the question of ‘liberal democracy’

Abstract

We need to summarise. This will be done in 7.1, which further queries whether it may be useful to keep on asking the question of the relevance of ‘liberal democracy’ to developing countries. The final section, 7.2, considers the question whether there is an ‘Asian model’ and whether Asian countries will move towards the Western model, as a result both of the pressures arising out of the ‘financial crisis’ and of ‘globalisation’ more generally. Summarising This present study started by asking the question of how political regime-type may affect economic development, or, more specifically, how ‘liberal democracy’ affects economic development. It set out to demonstrate that one way to make some progress in answering the question is by means of a three-fold model of ‘liberal democracy’. This framework was duly set up in chapter 2 and involves a distinction between the ‘liberal’ and the ‘democratic’, and further between ‘economic’, ‘civil’ and ‘political’ liberties. The usefulness of this three-fold understanding of ‘liberal democracy’ was first highlighted in chapter 3 where it was argued that some of the characteristics (particularly difficulties) of present democratisation processes can be traced to the complicatedness of the concept of ‘liberal democracy’. The three-fold conceptual framework was then used to re-examine (in chapter 5) the theoretical debate between those for whom ‘democracy is good for development’ and those arguing against this.