Democracy, Development And Good Governance

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Literature review

Many scholars have been studied development over past decades and today it is popular necessary are for research and analysis. There are wide debates of question why one societies are prosperous and others are not and what are the reasons. Before starting own research, it is important to look at previous studies and findings. This literature review looks at democratic theories and developmental theories, precisely modernisation theory. This paper is build on theories of institutionalism, Neopatrimonialism, creative destruction and studies of Acemoglu, Robinson, Fukuyama, Schumpeter, Grycak and many others.

At first, this literature review explores links between development, democracy and good governance. Then it moves to the issue of corruption and overview its impact on development. There is comparison between corruption in democratic and authoritarian regimes and the role of corruption in both types of political regimes. As this study focuses on corruption and development of Ukraine, third part will analyse literature on Ukraine in this regard.

Democracy, development and good governance

Today most nations accept the legitimacy of democracy or at least pretend to hold competitive elections and imitate democratic process (Fukuyama, 2016). Democracy is recognised as the most suitable political regime and the best system to facilitate the progress of humanity (Shapiro, 2003). Therefore, this dissertation argues a fundamental importance of democracy for development and furthermore its influence on corruption. Only democracy can create institutional arrangements for long-term sustainable development and eliminate corruption.

So what is democracy and what makes it work? Democracy can be defined by couple of ke...

... middle of paper ...

..., blur lines between the public and the private, the separation which came together with democratisation. The very notion that there was potential conflict between public and private emerged only with the rise of democratic impersonal states. As was mentioned – main feature of modern state is public welfare and usage of public resources for private gain undermines the very notion of the state. Today we call it corruption. Again, this modern phenomenon also raised with democratisation, as up until a few centuries ago, there were virtually no uncorrupted states.

Today corruption damages inclusion and undermines democracy, it works as an exclusion in society. By its nature, corruption is conducted secretly and requires deceit. Exclusion works because it is a secret that allows those in corrupt relations to internalise benefits and externalise the harms (Warren, 2005).

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