MODERNİZASYON TEORİSİ BAĞLAMINDA DEMOKRASİNİN SOSYAL GEREKSİNİMLERİ: RIDGE REGRESYON YAKLAŞIMINDAN AMPİRİK BULGULAR.

Along with the current theoretical literature underlining the relationship between socio-economic development and democracy in general, the article examines the relationship between economic development and democracy on a global scale. In the article, the subject of whether economic development - increasing per capita income - is a social necessity for democracy within the framework of the modernization theory, which has an important place in comparative politics with Lipset's (1959) seminal work, is considered the availability of the data set, for 2018, 118 country data are analyzed. As a result of the analysis carried out with the Ridge regression method, economic development affects democracy significantly and positively. This finding, in addition to supporting the Lipset hypothesis, shows that certain structural conditions are conducive to stable democracy. On the other hand, political stability, government efficiency, and industry (value-added) variables affect democracy positively; it has been determined that military expenditures, exports of goods and services, urbanization, and natural resource revenues affect democracy negatively and the reasons for the findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]