Democratic Equilibrium: the Supply and Demand of Democratic Change (original) (raw)
Democracy and Democratization Processes and Prospects in a Changing World
has written numerous books and articles on international relations and development issues. He has written excellent textbook covering a number of major issues relating to the current wave of democratizations and also examines the debate over the meaning of democracy, the relative validity of various generalizations concerning the process of democratization and the impact of democracy on international relations. In the book Democracy and Democratization-Processes and Prospects in a Changing World, Professor Sorensen brilliantly combines the discussion of general trends and theoretical questions of democratization with a wellinformed look at specific issues in Africa, Asia and Latin America. It takes up recent empirical developments as a challenge to theory building in the field of Political Science, International Relations and transition research.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics
Is democratization good for peace? The question of whether democratization results in violence has led to a spirited and productive debate in empirical conflict studies over the past two decades. The debate, sparked by Mansfield and Snyder's foundational work, raised a challenge to the notion of a universal democratic peace and elicited numerous critical responses within the literature. One set of such responses has emphasized issues of replicability, mismatches between the research design and directionality of the proposed causal mechanism, the role of outliers, and model specification. In addition, two issues have not been discussed sufficiently in the existing literature. First, conceptually, is the issue of concept stretching, specifically the form Sartori labeled the "cat-dog" problem. While past criticisms were mainly about model specification, we debate whether Mansfield and Snyder's findings can be seen as a product of concept misformation. Second, quantitatively, are conceptual and empirical issues that Mansfield and Snyder use to capture state strength in their most recent attempts to provide ongoing evidence for their theory. The most optimistic estimates show that even when democratization has a statistically significant association with war onset at lower levels of institutional strength, the effect is substantively insignificant.
Democracy, Conflict and Development - Three Cases
This paper explores the connections between democracy, peace and development in three cases of recent history -Uganda, Kenya and Sri Lanka. It is shown that there are no simple and universal relationships. The experience of all three countries shows that democratic institutions are not sufficient to prevent conflict and can foment it in sharply divided societies. The case of Sri lanka suggests that redesigning democratic institutions in order to reduce conflict can fail to do so and may actually accentuate it. The paper concludes that inclusive government, politically and economically, is necessary to prevent conflict. This entails political participation by all major groups and a spread of economic benefits throughout society. Such inclusive government may be consistent with non-democratic structures and may often be undermined by democratic institutions, especially where violence is recent and threatening. Political and economic conditionality should aim to promote inclusive government and even development, even at the cost of conventional economic conditionality and the promotion of democracy, in violence-prone societies.
Special Issue of Democratization: On the State of Democracy, Julio Faundez (ed
2009
The debate between modernization theory and its opponents is over. Neither evidence nor argument can support the claim that authoritarianism is necessary for economic development. However, is democracy necessary for development, as opposed to obviously being desirable on other grounds? The evidence on how democracy actually operates in developing countries raises important questions about the relationship between markets, states, and democracies. In particular, the role of patron-client networks in these countries questions the relevance of the standard arguments made for the positive economic effects of democracy in developing countries. There is, however, an argument from the neo-Weberian school that claims that democratization can begin to undermine the patron-client relationships (neo-patrimonialism) that impede development. But in fact, there are powerful structural reasons why this is not likely to happen. Economic characteristics of developing countries make patron-client politics both rational for redistributive coalitions and effective as strategies for achieving the goals of powerful constituencies within these coalitions. These are unlikely to be affected by democratization. The evidence strongly supports our analysis. If this is right, and if many types of patron-client politics are damaging for development, democratization is unlikely
Facilitating Peace: Democracy Building Following Violent Conflict
The Centre for Studies in Democratisation (CSD) was established at the University of Warwick in 1992 in response to a growing interest in the study of democracy at a theoretical and empirical level. Democratisation has become a central political theme and features now prominently on the foreign policy agenda of western countries. Members of CSD are seeking to understand why, how and when democracies emerge, sustain or collapse. They also investigate the reasons why democratisation can sometimes be problematic.
How and when might democratisation be vulnerable to violent political instability
Term Paper, 2017
Democratisation in the “global south” have at times ended in – or been characterized by – violent political instability. At other times, democratisation have transpired in a peaceful manner. The various experiences of the recent Arab Spring, from Tunisia to Syria, underline the observation that: what starts of as calls for democracy might end in violent chaos as well as democratic progress. The observed variance generates a clear question: how and when might democratisation be vulnerable to violent political instability? In order to answer this question, I will review the literature on democratisation generated in the wake of the stagnation of the third wave of democracy. This literature is not primarily focused on the relationship between democratisation and violent political instability, but on the challenges and opportunities of democratisation. Nevertheless, various theories of democratisation emphasize different processes, dynamics, and actors. Inherent vulnerability might, or might not, be present within these processes, dynamics, and actors. My goal is not to test theory, but to generate hypothesis regarding the possible inherent vulnerability of these elements.
Is democracy losing its appeal across the world? How can Western powers support indigenous pro-democratic actors and pave the way for a political transition? Kathryn Stoner-Weiss and Michael McFaul, Thomas Carothers and Diane de Gramont, and Joshua Kurlantzick concur in the consequential role of external factors in democratization. Kurlantzick holds that ongoing democratic recession is caused, inter alia, by the middle classes’ disappointment in democracy. Nonetheless, Western countries should continue to use such instruments as shaming and selective incentives in order not to let authoritarians descend into more repressive rule. Kathryn Stoner, Michael McFaul, and other contributors to the volume on democratic transitions present an actor-centric theory of exogenous democratization, in which external actors empower indigenous forces that initiate political transitions. Carothers and de Gramont discuss the political role of aid assistance, arguing in favor of conditionality between aid and democratic change. These three books discuss democratization from an international perspective, but the foci of each work are different. Kurlantzick discusses the present state of democracy and its future prospects, Stoner and McFaul provide a theory of exogenous democratic transitions, and Carothers and de Gramont examine how aid assistance can induce democratization from the outside.
ON THE CRISIS OF DEMOCRACY - with changes.docx
Journalism and Mass Communication, Jan.-Feb. 2019, Vol. 9, No. 1, 33-52. , 2019
In the last three decades of the 20th century, important political changes occurred in all regions of the world, making the institutions of many existing political systems closer to the ideals of democracy. But as happened in other moments of history, those processes of democratization, even when successful, always occurred through advances and retreats. Thus, contemporary political practices, procedures, and institutions embody democratic ideals only partially. In many nations, in the present, the rule of law, civil, and political rights, and institutional mechanisms for citizens’ control of governments remain ineffective or underdeveloped. Thus, a double concern prevails among analysts: on the one hand, the regression to authoritarianism in some countries after the processes of political changes—Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Turkey being the paradigmatic examples; the emergence of semi-democracies, i.e., hybrid or illiberal regimes, which have provoked a new interest in the study of patterns of institutional design, the critical role of civil society, different political-cultural developments, authoritarian legacies in the context of the new democracies, competitive authoritarianism and new dictatorships. On the other hand, the acknowledgement of intrinsic limits of the historical development of the democratic regime even in the case of old democracies, i.e., the fact that political equality, active citizen participation, and effective control of abuse of power have never been fully realized in practice. This is the general context in which many analysts and part of the public opinion sustain that there is a crisis of democracy. The general diagnosis refers to the decreasing trust in political elites, political parties, parliaments, governments, and to the dissatisfaction with the regime among democrats; it refers also to the weaker and sometimes erratic performance of democratic institutions and particularly to the failure of the representative system. The picture is completed with the growing rates of partisan misalignment, electoral volatility, and declining civic participation. All this seems to indicate that democracy is inconceivable without crisis. This chapter discusses this scenario. The crisis of democracies is examined from a critical perspective, and the main objective is to understand the different dimensions of its nature and its consequences. Keywords: democratization, crisis, quality of democracy, semi-democracy, illiberal regime, authoritarianism, populism
The advance of democracy in Latin America over the past quarter century has contributed significantly to ensuring respect for fundamental political freedoms, civil liberties, and human rights. Democracies in Development highlights how an effective democracy is also essential for sustainable economic and social development. The book analyzes the effects of institutions on the functioning of democratic systems, identifies regional trends in political reform, assesses the value of reforms in contributing to enhanced democratic governance, and offers conclusions about the types of reforms that may hold promise for strengthening democracy. Appendices in the book’s accompanying CD-ROM outline the institutional makeup of the region’s democratic systems, examine voter turnout in presidential and legislative elections from 1978 to 2004, and present election results over the same period.