Investigating the Effect of Economic Development on Democracy in the framework of Modernization Theory

Examining how economic developmentaffect democracy is one of the most controversial issues in development. This issue can be more important for countries like Iran, which are in the early stages of their economic development. The present study tries to examine the theory of modernization from a new perspective in OPEC countries during the years 2000 to 2018, using the method of principal component analysis and developing a quantitative index for economic development. For this purpose, the variables of per capita income, urbanization rate, Access to education and industrialization have been used. The results of GMM model estimation show that the above variables alone do not have a significant effect on democracy. However, if economic development enters the model using a composite index, the positive and significant effect of economic development on democracy is evident.