We consider the relationship between economic development and political regime, tracing through the history of the debate amongst modernization theorists, its challengers, its revisionists, and the outright skeptics of any relationship. We acknowledge the importance of the contributions of those who argue that economic development causes democracies to emerge, as well as the importance of new work suggesting the entire relationship is spurious, driven instead by the specific country histories. We find most convincing, however, the evidence that there is a relationship between economic development and democracy, and it is driven by the fact that democracies at high levels of income survive while poor democracies are fragile. We do not find convincing the claim that development causes democracy to emerge. Full Paper - José Antônio Cheibub