There is a certain point that comes invariably when I read through a topic like this that makes me wish we had the Prime Directive (Star Trek as philosophy is not a far stretch, is it?).

Reading through Wucherpfennig and Deutsch (Modernization and Democracy: Theories and Evidence Revisited) I can't help but feel that I am not learning anything. I am at a loss on how to use loaded and simplistic conclusions like "...for democracy to be stable it must come about from within, since it is the socio-economic conditions which create and maintain an environment for stable and enduring democracies". Really? And there I thought poverty and war were the engines of democracy.

ok, sorry for the diatribe, I'll be more serious now... Russia, Cambodia, Japan and China have done an excellent job of testing modernization approaches on human populations. Priceless laboratories IMO. Incidentally, as has Western Europe and the US. In these examples alone we see what the possible outcomes are when the pace of change is 1 generation, 2-3, and 3-5. Quite instructively in the 1-3 model lots of people tend to die. In the 3-5 model lots of people tend to see slow changes punctuated by a revolutionary change in social-norms on the order of once in a lifetime. (I promise to write a lengthier post with lots of citations if there is interest). And this is only when it comes to industrialization, followed by rapid urbanization.

This makes sense when one considers that socio-economic systems exist within a context of population density, food production, communal interdepence, and most importantly, political stability. Interestingly, democratization addresses only the last one of these factors, by introducing a system that is more prone to near-term instability than any other conceivable option. Even Ghaddafi was stable on the scale of a generation.

Complex reaction to a complex and mildly infuriating topic...