seizure of independence followed by civil and foreign wars produced polit-
ical turmoil in the nineteenth century that made progress towards any kind
of stable government very difficult to achieve. A long history of élite com-
petition is another political factor, significant in some Latin American coun-
tries, and supporting Dahl’s (1971) thesis that democracy is most likely to
be successful when political competition becomes institutionalized before
the expansion of the suffrage and other forms of political participation.
Latin American history supports the hypothesis that democracy is likely to
be more stable if based on a historical sequence that establishes national
identity first, followed by the creation of legitimate state structures, fol-
lowed by the extension of rights to political participation to all members of
society (Diamond and Linz, 1989, pp. 5–9).
Inadequate preparation for constitutional democracy by colonial powers
has been seen as another factor contributing to the difficulties in coping with
change experienced by many newly independent regimes (Brecher, 1963,
p. 624; Diamond, 1988, pp. 6–9; 1989, p. 13; Pinkney, 1993, ch. 3), though
it has to be recognized that a common colonial legacy can be followed by
very different experiences of political stability, as the cases of India and
Pakistan confirm.
The political culture
Following an attitudes survey carried out in the early 1960s by Almond and
Verba it was posited that there is a pattern of political attitudes that supports
democracy – a ‘civic’ or balanced culture ‘in which political activity,
involvement and rationality exist but are balanced by passivity, traditional-
ity, and commitment to parochial values’ (Almond and Verba, 1963, p. 30).
Democratic consolidation also requires attitudes which recognize the legit-
imacy of territorial and constitutional arrangements and a willingness to
accept the outcomes when the rules of political life (especially electoral
rules) have been adhered to (Leftwich, 2000, pp. 136–7).
The values and orientations found to be associated with the stability of
democracy are moderation, co-operation, bargaining and accommodation.
‘Moderation’ and ‘accommodation’ imply toleration, pragmatism, willing-
ness to compromise, and civility in political discourse. Time is often seen as
a critical variable here, producing (for example) a contrast between the time
available for India to acquire democratic values and have them disseminated
from élites to the masses, and the limited opportunity to develop democratic
values in Africa before independence (Diamond et al., 1990, pp. 16–17;
Diamond, 1993b, pp. 10–27).
Democratization in the Third World 265