This chapter summarizes the main insights from the book and sets out the main challenges lying ahead for democracy. It identifies varieties of autocracy and the role of external threats and group hostilities before assessing the possibilities of spreading democracy to new regions, consolidating and improving new democracies, and deepening old democracies.
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Chapter
26. Conclusion: The Future of Democratization
Christian Welzel, Ronald Inglehart, Patrick Bernhagen, and Christian W. Haerpfer
Chapter
13. Conventional Citizen Participation
Ian McAllister and Stephen White
This chapter examines the most visible and politically important act of conventional citizen participation: turning out to vote in a national election. Patterns of political participation are influenced by a variety of institutional factors, such as the type of electoral system and the number of political parties in a country, along with individual socioeconomic factors such as a person’s educational attainments or income. A particular problem in many previously authoritarian societies is the absence of a diverse civil society, so that the social trust upon which a healthy democracy depends is often absent. The chapter first considers various dimensions of political participation before discussing voter turnout in democratic countries. It then analyses the effects of institutional arrangements such as election rules, the type of electoral system, and the party system on political participation. Finally, it describes some of the factors that determine whether or not citizens participate in politics.
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18. A Decade of Democratic Decline and Stagnation
M. Steven Fish, Jason Wittenberg, and Laura Jakli
This chapter examines key factors that lead to failed democratization. It first describes five categories of countries: established democracies, established autocracies, robust democratizers, tenuous democratizers, and failed democratizers. Using the Freedom House Index, it explains why some democratizers slid backwards while others did not. In particular, it looks at the conditions that undermine democracy and political actors, such as the chief executive, that contribute to democratization’s derailment. The chapter identifies several major structural factors that influence whether democratization succeeds fully, succeeds partially, or fails. These include poverty, a late history of national independence, a large Muslim population, economic reliance on oil and gas, and gender inequality. The chapter concludes by considering ways of reducing the hazards of democratic reversal and preventing relapses into authoritarianism, such as strengthening legislatures and curtailing executive power.
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3. Democratic and Undemocratic States
Richard Rose
This chapter discusses the distinction between democratic and undemocratic states, noting that it is not only about whether there are elections: it is about whether or not it there is the rule of law. When both conditions are met, elections are free and fair and the government is accountable to the electorate. When laws can be bent or broken, unfair elections represent the will of governors more than that of the governed. The chapter first defines democratic states and outlines the characteristics of a democratic state before assessing the state of states today. It then considers three kinds of undemocratic states, namely: constitutional oligarchy, plebiscitarian autocracy, and unaccountable autocracy. It also examines how democratization has more often come about by trial and error rather than through gradual evolution and concludes by analysing the dynamics of democratic and undemocratic states.
Book
Christian Welzel and Ronald F. Inglehart
Edited by Christian W. Haerpfer and Patrick Bernhagen
Democratization introduces the theoretical and practical dimensions of democratization. Focusing on the ‘global wave of democratization’ that has advanced since the early 1970s, this text examines the major perspectives, approaches, and insights that have informed research on democratization. The book is divided into four parts based on four aspects of democratization. Part One deals with theoretical and historical perspectives; Part Two focuses on causes and dimensions of democratization; Part Three looks at actors and institutions; and Part Four is concerned with regions of democratization such as Southern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and East Asia. Topics include the distinction between democratic and undemocratic states, the role of democratization in foreign policy, and the contributions of social movements, protest, and transnational advocacy networks to democratic transition. Key themes covered in this thoroughly revised and updated second edition include: theories of democratization; critical prerequisites and driving social forces of the transition to democracy; pivotal actors and institutions involved in democratization; conditions for democratic survival and the analysis of failed democratization; demonstrations of how these factors have played a role in the different regions in which the global wave of democratization transplaced authoritarian and communist systems; and possible futures of democratization worldwide.
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25. East Asia
Doh Chull Shin and Rollin F. Tusalem
This chapter examines the processes of democratization in East Asia over the past two decades. It first provides a historical background on transitions to democracy in the region before assessing the extent to which third-wave democracies have consolidated by appraising the quality of their performances. Analyses of Freedom House and the World Bank data show that the East Asian region has been slow in responding to the surging wave of global democratization in terms of not only transforming authoritarian regimes into electoral democracies, but also consolidating electoral democracies into well-functioning liberal democracies. The Asian Barometer surveys, on the other hand, reveal that the mass citizenries of China and Singapore endorse their current regime as a well-functioning democracy, and are not much in favour of democratic regime change in their country. The chapter concludes with a discussion of prospects for democratic regime change in China and Singapore.
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10. Gender and Democratization
Pamela Paxton and Kristopher Velasco
This chapter examines the role of gender in democracy and democratization. It first considers how gender figures in definitions of democracy, noting that while women may appear to be included in definitions of democracy, they are often not included in practice. It then explores women’s democratic representation, making a distinction between formal, descriptive, and substantive representation. Women’s formal political representation is highlighted by focusing on the fight for women’s suffrage, whereas women’s descriptive representation is illustrated with detailed information on women’s political participation around the world. Finally, the chapter discusses the role of women in recent democratization movements around the world.
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6. The Global Wave of Democratization
John Markoff and Daniel Burridge
This chapter focuses on the great wave of democracy that had touched every continent. In the early 1970s, Western Europe was home to several non-democratic countries, most of Latin America was under military or other forms of authoritarian rule, the eastern half of Europe was ruled by communist parties, much of Asia was undemocratic, and in Africa colonial rule was largely being succeeded by authoritarian regimes. By the early twenty-first century, things had changed considerably, albeit to different degrees in different places. The chapter looks at regions of the world that underwent significant change in democracy between 1972 and 2004, including Mediterranean Europe, Latin America, Soviet/Communist Bloc, Asia, and Africa. It considers what was distinctive about each region’s democratization and what they had in common. It concludes with an overview of challenges faced by democracy in the early twenty-first century.
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15. Institutional Design in New Democracies
Matthijs Bogaards
This chapter focuses on electoral systems and institutional design in new democracies. It first compares Maurice Duverger’s electoral laws with those of Giovanni Sartori before discussing the main insights from the literature on electoral systems in established democracies as well as evidence from new democracies. It then considers the impact of the electoral law on the type of party system and its role as intermediary between society and government in plural societies. It also examines the party system as an independent variable, along with dependent variables such as the number of political parties, social cleavages, and presidentialism. Finally, it discusses consociational democracy and how electoral system design can be used in managing ethnic conflicts.
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7. The International Context
Hakan Yilmaz
This chapter examines the major theoretical approaches to the issue of the international context of democratization. In particular, it considers democratization by means of ‘convergence’, ‘system penetration’, ‘internationalization of domestic politics’, and ‘diffusion’. It also discusses the principal dimensions of the international context, namely, the democracy promotion strategies of the United States and the European Union. The term ‘conditionality’ is used to describe the democracy promotion strategy of the EU. In the case of the United States, its leverage with respect to democracy promotion has been undermined by its military intervention and violation of human rights. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the effects of globalization and the formation of a global civil society on democratization.
Chapter
1. Introduction
Christian Welzel, Ronald Inglehart, Patrick Bernhangen, and Christian W. Haerpfer
This chapter introduces the new edition of Democratization against the backdrop of a new pessimism about Democracy. It anticipates the major themes pursued in the book by discussing democracy’s persistent culture-boundedness and societal pre-conditions. The chapter concludes by highlighting economic inequality as major threat to democracy while emphasizing democracy’s value for human, political, and social life.
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20. Latin America
Andrea Oelsner and Mervyn Bain
This chapter examines the main features of the undemocratic regimes that were in power in Latin America from the late 1960s, along with the democratization processes that followed since the 1980s. The nature of the non-democratic governments varied throughout the region, and consequently the types of transition and the quality of the resulting democracy varied as well. The chapter focuses on four cases that reflect these differences: Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and Venezuela. For each country, the chapter reviews a number of dimensions that have been relevant in the democratization processes: the historical and international contexts, the role of economic factors, political culture and society, political parties and social movements, and the institutional challenges that still lie ahead.
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5. Long Waves and Conjunctures of Democratization
Dirk Berg-Schlosser
This chapter focuses on the history of democratization since the late eighteenth century. It introduces the concepts of ‘waves’ (trends) and ‘conjunctures’ (briefer turmoils) and delineates the major developments in this respect. In this way, the major long-term and short-term factors leading to the emergence and breakdowns of democracies are also highlighted. The first long wave occurred during the period 1776–1914, followed by the first positive conjuncture in 1918–19, the second long wave (with some intermittent turbulences) in 1945–88, and the latest conjuncture in 1989–90. The chapter identifies the main ingredients to democratization throughout history, namely: republicanism, representation, and political equality. It concludes by considering some of the current perspectives and dangers for the future of democracy.
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4. Measuring Democracy and Democratization
Patrick Bernhagen
This chapter considers problems associated with classifying countries as democracies and non-democracies and measuring the extent to which a country has advanced on the path of democratization. It first examines different concepts and dimensions of democracy such as political sovereignty, political liberty, competition, participation, freedom of expression and belief, and rule of law. Using publicly available quantitative indices of democracy, the chapter illustrates the problems faced by researchers of translating these concepts into measures. It also asks whether democracy should be thought of as a property that is either present or absent, or, alternatively, a characteristic that can be present to a greater or lesser extent. Finally, it discusses various hybrid regime categories for their contribution to efforts of classifying and measuring political regimes.
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16. The Media
Katrin Voltmer and Gary Rawnsley
This chapter examines the role of the media in processes of democratization. It considers the media’s political, economic, and social environment both in their domestic and international contexts. It also explains how new communications technologies have made it increasingly difficult for authoritarian regimes to hermetically seal their borders to prevent the flow of information in and out of the country. The most noticeable influence of international communications in the process of democratization is the ‘demonstration effect’. The chapter also discusses media-state relations, how market conditions and commercialization affect the media’s ability to fulfil their democratic role, and issues of journalistic professionalism and the quality of reporting. It argues that democracy and the media need each other.
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23. The Middle East and North Africa
Francesco Cavatorta
This chapter examines why democratic openings failed to consolidate in the Middle East and North Africa despite the profound influence of the global wave of democratization on both regions. Authoritarianism persists in the region comprising the Middle East and North Africa. Nevertheless, countries in the region experienced changes since the consolidation of authoritarian rule soon after decolonization. The chapter considers a number of explanations for the durability of authoritarian rule in the Middle East and North Africa in the face of both domestic and international pressures for democratic governance. In particular, it discusses the role of Islamist political actors and Israel. It also looks at the region’s political culture and society, business and economy, and agents of democratization and democratic failure. Finally, it describes institutional challenges for the region’s chances to become more democratic.
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9. Political Culture, Mass Beliefs, and Value Change
This chapter examines the role of mass beliefs and value change in democratization processes. Building on one of the central assumptions of political culture theory—the congruence thesis—it argues that mass beliefs are of critical importance for a country’s chances to become and remain democratic. Mass beliefs determine whether a political system is accepted as legitimate or not, which has a major impact on a regime’s likelihood of surviving. The chapter first considers how the role of mass beliefs in democratization is addressed in the literature before discussing mass demands for democracy vs popular preferences for democracy. It then discusses regime legitimacy and its relation to economic performance and asks whether emancipative values are caused by democracy. It also explains changes in many countries’ level of democracy and concludes with an analysis of the influence of religion on democratization.
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8. The Political Economy of Democracy
Patrick Bernhagen
This chapter examines the relationship between democratization and the economy. It first provides an historical overview of the emergence of capitalist democracy before discussing some general problems of the relationship between democracy and capitalism, highlighting the main areas in which the two systems condition each other. It then considers the role of business in democratizing countries, and more specifically the role of business actors in the transition to democracy. It also explores the intricacies of combining major political and economic reforms. Some key points are emphasized; for example, capitalism focuses on property rights while democracy focuses on personal rights. Furthermore, capitalism produces inequality, which can both stimulate and hamper democratization.
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14. Political Parties
Leonardo Morlino
This chapter examines the role of political parties in the processes of democratization, that is, during transition, installation, and consolidation, and the possible phases of democratic crisis. It first considers the definition of a political party within the processes of democratization before discussing how parties can be indispensable for the actual working of democracy. It then explores the actual role of political parties during transitions to democracy and during democratic consolidation, and in different types of crises. It also describes basic patterns of transition to democracy as well as key elements of democratic consolidation, including electoral stabilization and emergence of recurring patterns of party competition. The chapter shows that parties are dominant in the process of transition, even if not always hegemonic.
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21. Post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe
Christian W. Haerpfer and Kseniya Kizilova
This chapter examines the democratic revolutions that occurred in post-communist Europe since 1989. It first considers the beginning of the decline of communism and the failed attempts to reform communist one-party states from 1970 to 1988 as stage one of democratization. It then discusses the end of communist regimes as the second stage of democratization—between 1989 and 1991. It also looks at stage three of the democratization process, which focuses on the creation of new democracies. The chapter concludes with an assessment of the main drivers of successful democratization in post-communist Europe.
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