25. Perplexing Coexistence of Democracy, Transparency and Development in the Contemporary Era

Though both democracy and development are two conventional words in the modern world, the interrelation between them is crucial. Democracy is one of the state principles that can act as an important catalyst to making development more viable. We can consider democracy as a process where development is the output. Economist Amartya Sen defined development as a process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy. And democracy is the process of institutionalization of that freedom. So the correlation between democratization and development is quite inherent. Sen’s view is now widely accepted: development must be judged by its impact on people, not only by changes in their income but more generally in terms of their choices, capabilities and freedoms. We should be concerned about the distribution of these improvements, not just the simple average for a society. Democracy is ‘that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote’ (Schumpeter J, Capitalism, socialism and democracy. Harper Perennial, London, 1942). However, recently diverse winds of democracy are blowing that are affecting the trend of development. This paper explores the current state of interrelation between democracy and development based on secondary data and empirical knowledge. It develops a compact understanding about the contemporary interrelation between democracy and development.