Democracies, Autocracies and Transitions.
Summary Readings & Notes Part 2
Determinants of democratization. By Teorell.
Chapter 4. The impetus from abroad: international determinants.
Politics has never been carried out in fully closed domestic arenas.
There are three non-domestic forces at work:
1. International trade.
2. Neighbor diffusion.
3. Pressure from regional international organizations.
Examples of non-domestic determinants of democratization:
Foreign direct investment.
Regional international organizations.
Direct foreign intervention.
Teorell focuses on the average level of democracy at three spatial levels:
Globally, among countries belonging to the same world region, and among neighboring
countries.
Teorell finds that during the third wave there seem to have been no diffusion effects at work
(net of other influences) either at the regional or global level.
He collapses the measures of economic sanctions and military interventions into one ’index’,
simply indicating whether any form of intervention occurred.
In sum, Teorell finds three robust international determinants of democratization during the
third wave: trade volume, with a negative impact, as well as neighbor diffusion and
membership in democratic regional organizations, both with a positive impact.
Neighbor diffusion can most plausibly be explained by two factors:
1. Imposition.
Countries that move toward democracy themselves try to promote democratization
among their neighbors. This is for their own internal security (democratic peace
theory).
2. Emulation.
The driving force of diffusion comes from within the neighboring countries
themselves. By emulating the successful example of the neighbor that first installs
democracy, by discovering “that it can be done” and learning “how it can be done”
(Huntington 1991, p. 101), the democratic opposition may raise its chances of
succeeding in overthrowing its own autocratic incumbent.
,Pevehouse hypothesizes three distinct causal mechanisms through which membership in a
democratic regional organization may further democratization in a country:
1. Pressure.
Through for instance threats of sanctions can a regional organization threaten to hurt
the economy of an authoritarian regime. These pressures can help weaken n
authoritarian regime’s grip on power.
2. Acquiescence.
Pevehouse assumes that an authoritarian regime depends on the support of certain
critical elite groups that may veto an attempted move toward democracy.
3. Legitimizing.
Legitimizing interim governments may promote democratization. Interim
governments are caretaker governments in power between the between the
breakdown of autocracy and before the holding of founding elections.
Pevehouse used three case studies: Turkey, Hungary and Peru.
Chapter 5. The force from below: popular modernization.
Democratization is most likely to emerge due to the political elites. Sometimes, the ‘demos’
also enters the scene and pushes for reforms.
The social forces tradition states that large numbers of peaceful anti-government
demonstrations facilitated upturns toward democracy during the third wave.
According to Teorell’s findings, did riots not exert any impact on democratization, nor did
strikes.
There are theoretical ideas, and even some sketchy empirical evidence, of a positive link
between the incidence of civil war and democratization. One suggestion is that the parties to
a civil conflict could choose to invite the people as arbitrator: to hold an election and pass
their power to a democratically elected government as a mechanism for conflict resolution.
Termination is a different mechanism that suggests that armed conflict in and of itself helps
solve collective action problems in attempt to overthrow authoritarian regimes. This would
thus suggest a positive impact of even the outbreak of civil war.
But why do popular demonstrations foster democratization, and why is it critical that they
are peaceful?
According to Schock it has to do with the paradox of repression: that an unarmed
challenge may be sustained and even promoted in the face of brutal state force directed
against it. Non-violent protest requires no special technology or equipment, nor is it critically
dependent on the physical fitness of its implementers. It thus has ‘the potential to allow the
maximum degree of active participation in the struggle by the highest proportion of the
population’.
In all these respects, violent methods sharply differ. Armed rebellion requires weaponry and
“has historically been limited to young, physically fit, ideologically indoctrinated or
mercenary males”.
,In any society, the state directly depends on segments of its own populace to rule. If any of
these segments, such as military personnel, police officers, administrators, or workers in
energy supply, transportation, communications, commerce, or other key sectors, refuse or
threaten to refuse to carry out their duties, the state’s power is significantly undermined.
Teorell investigated three cases with regard to the effects of popular mobilization:
The Philippines.
South Africa.
Nepal.
As the cases of the Philippines, South Africa and Nepal all clearly document, strike activity
was a crucial part of the popular insurgency, particularly when it came to severing the
authoritarian regimes’ dependence relations.
Article. Democratic Waves in Historical Perspective. By Seva Gunitsky.
The Arab Spring was only the latest in a long series of democratic waves. Democratic waves
vary immensely in their origins, reach, and success rates.
The first key distinction focuses on the role of hegemonic transformations in the
international system.
The origins of external influences can be:
Vertical.
In cases of waves created by geopolitical shifts. Stem from abrupt shifts at the top of
the international order.
Horizontal.
In waves driven by neighborhood linkages. Rather forged through local ties than
great power formations.
The second distinction focuses on the relative strength of external factors in shaping the
timing and duration of waves.
The strength of external influences in shaping the wave’s timing can be:
Contagion.
In short sweeping waves that override domestic constraints. Intense external forces
temporarily overwhelm domestic constraints. Lasts on average three years.
Emulation.
In protracted waves where domestic factors act as focal points for mobilization.
Domestic factors remain crucial in shaping the timing of national reforms. Lasts on
average more than thirteen years.
Moments of abrupt rise and decline of leading states create waves of domestic reforms that
sweep across national borders and deeply alter the paths of state development.
, Definitions of democratic waves remain scarce.
Huntington defines it as: ‘a group of transitions from nondemocratic to democratic regimes
that occur within a specified period of time and that significantly outnumber transitions in
the opposite directions during that period of time’.
Gunitsky defines a democratic wave as: ‘a temporally-bound cluster of mass contention and
regime change, with linkages among the cases in that cluster. In that sense, democratic
waves are a subtype of the broader phenomenon of democratic diffusion’.
Vertical versus Horizontal Waves.
We can distinguish waves stemming from major disruptions to the international system
(vertical waves) from those that are unrelated to any broader global transformations
(horizontal waves).
Contagion and Emulation in Democratic waves.
The second key distinction among waves resides in the role played by domestic factors –
namely, in whether the timing of transitions in a wave is mediated by domestic
circumstances. In contagion-driven waves, the spread of contention overrides domestic
influences, and the timing of national breakouts is often unrelated to internal causes.
The interaction of the two categories – horizontal versus vertical and contagion versus
emulation – produces the four-fold typology that is presented in the next illustration.
Despite their underlying differences, what unites the vast majority of waves is the presence
of failure – the tendency for democratic cascades to crest, collapse, and roll back.
