Pseudo-democracy in the Muslim world (original) (raw)
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Democratization is always an ambidextrous process. On the one hand, it triggers a universalistic set of norms, events, processes and symbols. On the other hand, democratization involves a much more particularistic set of 'realistic' adaptations to the structures and circumstances of individual countries. In analyzing the structures and conjuncture of countries in the Arab World during the past decades, scholars looked at them from the perspective of persistent authoritarianism. In this essay, we exploit democratization theoryas well as its converse by analyzing the universalistic set of events, processes and symbols of democratization elsewhere in the world, and then identifying the particularistic characteristics of timing, location and coincidence that seem likely to affect the political outcome of regime change in the countries affected by recent popular uprisings in Arab World.
Democracy and Democratization Processes and Prospects in a Changing World
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The International Context of Democratization
Hakan Yilmaz. 2018. "The International Context". In Democratization (2nd Edition), ed. Christian W. Haerpfer, Patrick Bernhagen, Christian Welzel, and Ronald F. Inglehart, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp.103-118., 2018
This is a revised and updated version of my article in the second edition of the volume "Democratization", edited by Christian W. Haerpfer, Patrick Bernhagen, Christian Welzel, and Ronald F. Inglehart. The first edition had been published in 2009. 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.
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Over the past few decades, the transnational dissemination of globalisation has given a major impetus to the further spread and reinforcement of democratic trends across the globe. By advancing the notion of democracy and building on the corresponding institutions, most developed states have got firmly committed to the co-development of normative standards aimed at the effective promotion and implementation of anti-authoritarian values into democratising societies. Simultaneously, the process of democratisation remains closely bound up with a broader spectrum of the global governance challenges and disputes, which in turn leads policymakers and academic scholars to identify its contemporary concept as a complex blend "of core normative values that are more or less satisfied" [1]. However, because each sub-discipline of political science is based upon distinct principles, there exist multiple approaches to the interpretation of the major surge of democracy worldwide. By comparing and contrasting two different stances on the same topic of democratisation by Kuyper [1] and Dryzek [2], this paper seeks to examine and draw parallels in their conceptualisation manners of the same issue that is peculiar both to the field of international relations and the branch of comparative politics respectedly. The first remark to be made is that both and Kuyper's [1] and Drysek's [2] reasoning identify democracy rather as an efficient governmental system in contrast to more autocratic ones. Distinctively, neither expert expresses that kind of stance directly, instead, this idea flows all through the articles, making it easier for readers to gradually immerse themselves wholly in the aspects of global democratisation, which both authors see as positive. This can be proven simply by the fact that both Kuyper [1] Dryzek [2] and put great a deal of emphasis on the idea of the further deliberate democratic expansion. For instance, Kuyper [1] in the very first sentence of his writing's abstract poses a thought-provoking question "How can democracy best be pursued and promoted in the existing global system?". This gives a person reading the paper an initial generalised directive, the article is going to be developed toward. Meanwhile, Dryzek [2] begins with a narrower assertion, stating that effectual deliberation is crucial for on-mass democratisation facilitation. By suggesting that, Dryzek [2] as well implicitly advocates the democratic peace argument and opens the discussion on how that kind of worthwhile political regime can be achieved. This again reflects the author's position and attitudes his paper is likely to cover later on. The basic argument in both of the articles concerns a strategic need for joint action and a consistent multilateral dialogue. Given that modern international
2004
Transitology' and 'consolidology' have only rarely emphasized the importance of defining democracy in a normatively and theoretically sophisticated manner. Almost without discussion they accepted the parsimonious definition and elegant but simple concepts of Schumpeter, Dahl and Przeworski. 1 They reduced democracy to the question of free and general electoral competition, vertical accountability and the fact that the most powerful political and social actors played the political game according to democratically institutionalized rules. At least implicitly, democracy was conceived as an elitist electoral democracy. Neither the structural question of prerequisites for democracy 2 nor the conditions for sustainable legitimacy 3 played and could play a relevant role within this minimalist concept of the sustainability of democracy. But not only the external 'embedding' of democracy, but also the 'internal' embeddedness of the democratic electoral regime was neglected. Rule of law, civil rights and horizontal accountability were excluded from the concept of democracy. Guillermo O'Donnell (1993) 4 was the first to criticize that conceptual flaw of the mainstream of transitology and consolidology. Thirty years after the beginning of the third wave of democratization empirical evidence revealed the theoretical shortcomings of the minimalist 'electoralists'. It became evident that it is misleading to subsume Denmark, Sweden or France under the same type of regime-an electoral democracy-as Russia, Thailand or Brazil. Political science ran the risk of even falling behind the analytical capacity of daily newspapers in differentiating between different types of democracy. It became clear that the majority of new democracies could not be labelled 'liberal democracies'. General, competitive and free elections turned out to be insufficient in guaranteeing the rule of law, civil rights and horizontal accountability. Between elections many of the electoral democracies were not government by, of or for the people. It became obvious, again, that democratic elections need the support of complementary partial regimes, such as the rule of law, horizontal accountability and an open public sphere in order to become 'meaningful' elections. Democratic theory has once again met up with research on democratization. Since the mid-1990s studies
II-B-365 Democratization Theory and the "Arab Spring"
2013
that inaugurated third-wave democratization theory. More than fifteen years have passed since the 1996 publication of our own Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Looking back, what do we find useable or applicable from works on democratization from this earlier period, and what concepts need to be modified? In particular, what new perspectives are needed in light of the recent upheavals in the Arab world?
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.
Democracy in the Middle East: Towards a More Peculiar Framework of Analysis
2014
For several decades, an already classical controversy has been developed, regarding the compatibility between democracy, in its forms developed by Western political culture (real partitioning of power within the state and independence of institutions, constitutionalism, respect of human rights and liberties, liberty of expression, existence of an active civil society, normal relations between state and society etc.) and capacity of the state and society from the Arab-Muslim World to functionally assume such a model. In the case of latter, a series of characteristics is linked to authoritarian and patriarchal political transitions, to persistence of an economic, political and religious violence which affects the internal stability of society, the important role of army which interferes or even dominates the civilian political environment, fluidity of the national realities and attachments which are challenged by the persistence of certain ethnic, sectarian or regional solidarities, raising issues on the legitimacy of nation-states, projects of Islamist movements that promote their own models of state and society, constructed from a reinterpretation of Islamic tradition, etc. Based on these assumptions, in this paper I intend to review several specific elements that contribute to the regional conditioning of democratization processes, especially in the context of new political and security dynamics, after the Arab Spring, the possibilities of democratization in the Middle East and North Africa, which have experienced tendencies of authoritarianism and especially an ascending fragmentation of the state order and stability, that has emerged as one of the recurrent analysis themes for specialists and decision makers.