Teaching Sociology and Sociological Imagination

A great number of sociological studies on democratization emphasize on the role of social classes in democratic transitions and the consolidation of democracy. Some authors like Barrington Moore know bourgeoisie as the historical agent of democracy, and for the authors like Dietrich Rueschemeyer, the workers are agents of democracy. In this article, we argue for a new perspective on the role of social classes in democratization based on a comparative historical study of the experience of democracy in Iran (1941-1953), Turkey (1945-1960) and South Korea (1945-1961). We are going to show that there are no specified pre-supposed interests in democracy for any social class, but the interests are historical-situational constructs of the circumstances of period under investigation. Democracy based on such an analysis is not the function of historical action of a specified class, rather it is the consequence of power balance between the classes in a specific part of history. In addition, as a part of such a perspective, the article argues in favour of a structural explanation for democratic consolidation.