Very few countries, in fact, have combined democracy as it is now understood with the process of economic take-off. [634] Britain ’s Industrial Revolution took place in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Even by 1850, however, only around one-fifth of men had the right to vote. It was not until the 1880s that most men gained the right, and not until 1918, over 130 years after the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, that women (over thirty) won the same right. Broadly speaking this picture applies to other West European countries, all of which experienced take-off without democracy. In fact the most common form of governance during Europe ’s industrial revolutions was the monarchical state, absolutist or constitutional. The American experience was significantly different. By 1860 a majority of white men enjoyed the right to vote, but most blacks did not acquire it, in practice, until 1965, while women only won it in 1920: during America ’s economic take-off, thus, only a minority enjoyed the right to vote. In Japan, universal male suffrage was not introduced until 1925, well after the economic take-off that followed the Meiji Restoration. [635] In sum, the right to vote was not established in the developed world, except for a very small and privileged minority, until well after their industrial revolutions had been concluded (white men in the United States constituting the nearest to an exception). The European powers, furthermore, never granted the vote to their colonies: it was still seen as entirely inappropriate for the vast tracts of the world that they colonized, even when it had become an accepted fact at home. The only exceptions in the British case were the so-called dominions like Australia and Canada, where shared racial and ethnic characteristics were the underlying reason for the display of latitude. It was not until after the great majority of former colonies gained independence following the Second World War that they were finally able to choose their form of governance. Much hypocrisy, it is clear, attaches to the Western argument that democracy is universally applicable whatever the stage of development.
Some form of democratic governance is now universal in the developed world, where economic take-off was achieved a century or more ago. In contrast, the picture predictably remains uneven in the developing world, with democracy for the most part either unusual or, at best, somewhat flawed. A similar pattern concerning democracy and levels of development broadly prevails in East Asia. Japan, as we have seen, did not achieve anything like widespread suffrage until well after its economic take-off. None of the first Asian tigers – South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore – achieved take-off under democratic conditions: South Korea and Taiwan were governed by far-sighted military dictatorships, Hong Kong was a British colony devoid of democracy, while Singapore enjoyed what might be described as a highly authoritarian and contrived democracy. All, though, were blessed with efficient and strategic administrations. As developmental states, the legitimacy of their governments rested in large part on their ability to deliver rapid economic growth and rising living standards rather than a popular mandate. Each of these countries has now achieved a level of development and standard of living commensurate with parts of Western Europe. Hong Kong, under Chinese rule since 1997, enjoys very limited elements of democracy; Singapore ’s governance remains a highly authoritarian democracy; while South Korea and Taiwan have both acquired universal suffrage and multi-party systems. These last examples, together with Japan, confirm that industrialization and economic prosperity generally provide more propitious conditions for the growth of democratic forms.
