Economic underdevelopment, democracy and civil society: The north-east Brazilian case.

It has become a platitude in the academic marketplace that the world has recently become more democratic. Yet the world is also increasingly divided between rich and poor. Of the more than 30 countries that have seen some sort of transition away from authoritarianism since 1974, 29 had a 1976 per capita GNP under $3,000 (p 62). That is, what has been called a global democratic revolution has taken place primarily in developing countries still badly afflicted by poverty and inequality. The purpose of this paper is to explore some recent attempts to theorise about the relationship between economic underdevelopment and democracy, and how democracy can be consolidated, in the developing world. The paper divides recent writings into three types and discusses each in turn: neo-modernisation theory, economistic approaches, and analyses of civil society. It then briefly discusses the problems of consolidating democracy in north-east Brazil, the largest region of poverty in the western hemisphere, in light of the previous theoretical discussion. The conclusion offers an overall assessment of the theoretical approaches and a summary of the problem underdevelopment poses for democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]