In The Future of Freedom, what is the relationship between economic growth and democratization?

As presented by Zakaria, the relationship between economic growth and democratization is that economic growth, under a stable government, allows for the democratization of society and governmental authority (democratization is distinguished from liberty, which is social and political freedoms constitutionally enumerated and protected). A growing and stable economy precedes a democratized society and government. 

Contemporary global economy is now largely democratized--the mass majority opinion has power over the elitist opinion--which represents a new economic force in world history.

Over the last half-century economic growth has enriched hundreds of millions in the industrial world, turning consumption, saving, and investing into a mass phenomenon.

Democratized economy has forced social structures to adapt to accommodate economic changes. "[E]conomic power ... has been shifting downward" from the economic elite to the democratized "many that are the middle class." The investment power wielded by workers' pension funds overshadow the "assets of the most exclusive investment group," which are "dwarfed" by the growing economic power of middle class investment sources.

The democratization of governments (illustrated by majority referendum votes overriding or subverting established law) results in "sapping" government by diluting its authority and by overriding the controls put in place to safeguard liberty. That this occurs, asserts Zakaria, is proven by the increase of globally extensive illegal movements of "people, drugs, money, and weapons ... [because] fueled by broad technological, social, and economic changes." The consequence is the intensifying tension between "the forces that drive democratization of authority" and state authority that governs.

Zakaria distinguishes between democracy and liberty. Democracy is rule by majority opinion (which Jefferson opposed, preferring elite representatives), while liberty is freedom to live according to social and political power constitutionally defined and constitutionally extended without prejudice.

[Hirsch, Kett, Trefil, The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy.]