DEMOCRATIZATION AND THE PARADOX OF NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH: A COMPARATIVE REVIEW OF SELECTED COUNTRIES

Abstract

More than ever before in the history of political philosophy the validity of democratic hypothesis has been called into question. While some scholars are of the view that democratization is the only panacea for the achievement of sustainable national development, others fervently contend that it is national development that herald democratization and not the other way round. Still others emphasizes the important of authoritarian regime as a conditio sena qua non for national development. This study attempts to address this lacuna or perception controversy, with data empirically generated from the secondary source, to comparatively analyze the nature and relationship between democratization and national development in Nigeria and Indonesia. Specifically, it examined whether the process of democratization in both countries enhances their national development. This study, however, revealed that national development is neither exclusively related to democratic political system nor authoritarian political regimes, but a direct function of the people’s commitments to the development project irrespective of the type of political system under which they found themselves