The article deals with the social mechanism that connects modernization with democratization. Starting from a differentiation theoretical point of view, the paper argues that the major impetus for democratization is rather given by “functional antagonisms” inside the social subsystems than by class conflicts: The more modernization progresses, the stronger becomes the demand for institutional autonomy against the state. The argument is developed in five steps: In the first step, I give a short overview over the latest developments in the debate on modernization and democratization. In the second step, the leading approaches in the field of democratization research are presented and critically discussed. In the third step, I examine the relationship between modernization and democratization from a differentiation theoretical point of view. The focus is on the basic constitutional rights by which the autonomy of the subsystems is guaranteed. In the fourth step, I show on the case of South Korea how structural strains and conflicts in the subsystems of politics, economy, education, and religion are transformed into pro-democratic protests. In the fifth step, the similarities and differences between the presented differentiation theoretical approach and previous – usually class theoretical – concepts of democratization research are discussed. It becomes evident that the transition to democracy can be fully explained neither by political nor by economic conflicts. What matters is to explore the variety and complexity of functional antagonisms in the social subsystems.
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Paper provided by GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies in its series GIGA Working Paper Series with number
15.