Classic Patterns of Political Development: A study of Western Europe

Political development is the processes in which capacities of political institutions and actors increase in order to organize and manage public affairs. In recent centuries, political development has revolved around three processes: The concentration of political power; the legalization of the state, and the democratization of the government. These processes at first, became apparent in Western Europe. We can distinguish two main Patterns of political development in these countries. The First pattern, that can be called "Social-based" became apparent in the northwestern Europe and British. In these countries, before and in parallel with the development of the government, the civil society was also developed. In these countries, political participation was gradually extended and deepened; therefore, political conflicts were appeared in institutional competitions and adjusted. The second pattern, that can be called "State-based", became apparent in the central and eastern Europe. In these countries, emphasizes has been placed upon strengthening of the power of the government, and the weak civil society did not play an effective role in politics. Therefore, in these countries political stability was under the pressure of obvious or hidden conflicts. In addition to these main patterns, there will also be a compound pattern that we call “revolutionary” which became apparent in French. In this country, the power of the state and society was relatively balanced, but these relations were not well established, such that they replaced each other alternately. This study shows that: 1) the first pattern suffers less contradiction and crisis 2) Many European countries that began in the form of second or third patterns, gradually shifted to the first 3- regardless of structural factors and international events, political elite played a decisive role in the evolution and transformation of political development processes to make timely decision for the political reform.