Political Development and Lerner's Theory: Further Test of a Casual Model

Abstract

A current concern in the theory of political development is the relationship between political democracy and economic and social variables. Various writers have hypothesized, for example, that the development of democratic political institutions is related to increasing levels of education, communications, and urbanization. Daniel Lerner has developed this argument further in stating that a developmental sequence occurs with increasing urbanization leading in turn to higher levels of education, communications development, and finally political development. This theory has been tested and corroborated in research which employed statistical causal modeling methods on contemporary data gathered over a large number of nations. The purpose of this paper is to test the adequacy of Lerner's model with data gathered over time in a single nation, which presents a research situation more congruent with the actual temporal processes of political development.