Democracy, development and proportional representation: A Sicilian case

Summary

Procedures watch operate well in certain democratic systems cannot always be implanted in other systems in which different political structures operate. If this is done, such procedures may lead to conditions in which scarce resources are used for sectional or personal interests. They may also block the decision‐making process and prevent or delay the allocation of such resources. Hence such procedures may have a negative effect upon a country's development potential. It is argued that proportional representation is such a democratic procedure.

Notes

Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Amsterdam. Earlier drafts of this paper were read to a seminar at the University of Sussex and to the Mediterranean Social Sciences Research Council conference on local and regional factors influencing national development, held in Malta, December 13–16, 1965. Very special thanks are due also to Professors Lucy Mair and Bruce Graham for their penetrating critique of aspects of it, which I have tried to meet. The initial field work in 1962/63 upon which the argument is based was greatly assisted by the generosity of the Centro Regionale per lo Sviluppo di Comun tà through the good offices of Rev. S. Duynstee, the Penrose fund of the American Philosophical Society and the Co‐operative for American Relief to Everywhere (C.A.R E., Inc.). A return trip to Sicily during the summer of 1965 and the preparation of this article for publication were made possible by a Faculty Research Grant from the Social Science Research Council, for which I am most grateful.