Universal Change and the Conditions for Democratic Development

Abstract

In the previous chapters, we have compared a wide range of European local elites across the turbulent 1990s. Country by country, we followed the native scholars’ own analyses of the development of the local governing conditions in relation to the general progress or decline of democracy. So far, the main purpose has been to describe and explain change in the composition and contexts of local elites, as well as their principles and practices for each of the surveyed nations separately. However, our central question of inquiry in the introductory chapter of this book about the interaction between local governing and national development of democracy remains unanswered. Our general assumption is that throughout the 1990s, changing governing characteristics of the local politicaladministrative elites influenced the democratic success and/or decline in a country. Hence, our aim in this chapter is not only finding those governing characteristics that have changed universally regardless of the country studied. Above all, it is to search for those governing qualities or components of a political capital that most clearly interact with democratic development, and therefore might explain why democracy succeeds in some European countries and declines or fails in others.