Market Mechanism or Democracy: Which Comes First?

The question of precedence of market economy over democracy (or vice versa) has always been a challenging problem in the domain of political economy. This paper tries to study view points of those advocating the market mechanism precedence to democracy، the proponents of Critical Historical Juncture theory، as well as followers of democracy precedence to market mechanism. The findings of this study show that necessary institutions for a competitive market، especially the property rights، are formed in the transitional process leading to democracy. Therefore، one could not claim that market mechanism precedes the transition to democracy. Meanwhile، the transitional process to democracy is too complicated to be explained merely through the elements of market mechanism.