Barrington Moore: Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy

Description: Barrington Moore Jr. (12 May 1913 – 16 October 2005) was an American political sociologist. He is well-known for his groundbreaking Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (1966), a comparative study concerned with the transformation of pre-industrial agrarian social relations into "modern" ones, focussing on Britain, France, the United States, China, Japan, Russia, Germany, and India. Moore highlighted what he called "three routes to the modern world" - the liberal democratic, the fascist, and the communist - each deriving from the timing of industrialisation and the social structure at the time of transition. The book puts forth a neo-Marxist argument that class structures (initially the "lord and peasant" of the book's subtitle) and class alliances at particular points in time can account for the kinds of social revolutions that occurred or did not occur in those countries, putting some countries on a path to democracy, whereas others were put on a path to authoritarianism or communism. He famously argued, "no bourgeois, no democracy," which emphasised the important role played by a large middle-class in accomplishing democratisation and ensuring democratic stability. But he also challenged modernisation theory by stressing that there was not one path to the modern world and that economic development did not always bring about democracy. For every sale made, Billowness Books donates 50p to a literacy charity: Book Aid International; Books Abroad; or the World Literacy Foundation.

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Location: Anstruther

End Time: 2025-02-04T12:23:58.000Z

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