Mass Mobilization and Elite Exchange: Democratization Episodes in Italy and Spain

At its dawn, democracy was a social movement, but little attention has been given to social movements in recent (mainly American) theorizations of democratization.1 The reason for this seems to be the division of labour in the social sciences as well as the bad press that movements gained between the two world wars and in the cold war years. As a result, most theorists have emphasized the role of elites in transitional cycles and largely ignored the role of social movements. Since the 1960s, advances in social movement theory and research both in Europe and North America allow a fresh look at the role of movements in transitional cycles. In this article, three aspects coming from this tradition ‐ the structure of political opportunity, the relations of elites and citizens, and the problem of organization ‐ are applied to three episodes of democratization: the failed transition to democracy in Italy after the First World War, the successful transition in Spain in the mid‐1970s and the incomplete transition in East‐Central Europe since 1989. The article closes with a brief reflection on the role of learning from past transitions in democratization cycles.     

Populist polarization and the slow death of democracy in Ecuador

This article analyses how the interactions between a strong populist government in Ecuador and a weak, divided, and inefficient internal opposition in a context of weak liberal institutions could lead to what Guillermo O'Donnell termed “the slow death of democracy”. Rafael Correa was elected with a substantive project of democratization understood as economic redistribution and social justice. His administration got rid of neoliberal policies and decaying traditional political parties, while simultaneously co-opting social movements, regulating civil society, and colonizing the public sphere. Because the judiciary was subordinated to Correa, social movement activists, journalists, and media owners could not use the legal system to resist Correa's crack down of civil society and regulation of the privately owned media. They took their grievances to supranational organizations like the Organization of American States. When these organizations stepped in to challenge Correa, his government denounced imperialist intervention in his nation's internal affairs, and advocated for the creation of new supranational institutions without US presence.     

Civil society and substantive democracy: Governance and the state of law in Belgium

Since the late 1980s, democratic institutions and an active civil society are being prescribed as important ingredients and preconditions to reduce poverty, social exclusion, and violent civil strife. Multi-party systems and elections are seen as the most important expressions of formal democracy. This paper argues that more attention is needed to substantive democracy, which requires a greater understanding of the various legal-political variants within a democratic framework. The paper discusses in some depth the crisis of governance in Belgium. The analysis raises questions about the relationship between 'political' and 'civil society', and between social movements and political parties.     

The incorporation of indigenous concepts of plurinationality into the new constitutions of Ecuador and Bolivia

This article studies the new constitutions of Ecuador and Bolivia in order to determine to what extent indigenous concepts of democracy have been incorporated into these important documents. The research presented here suggests that there is a significant correlation between the demands made by indigenous social movements over the past two decades and the new constitutional texts of both countries, which essentially embrace the alternative forms of citizenship and democracy espoused by indigenous social movement groups. For many activists, these changes open the door to what they perceive as a richer democracy.     

Towards consolidating democracy: The paradoxical role of democracy groups in Thailand

Civil society is thought to contribute to consolidating democracy, but exactly how this happens is not especially well understood. This article examines the recent experiences of ‘democracy groups’ in Thailand. While acknowledging there are other factors that contribute to democratic consolidation, it finds the cumulative effect of Thailand's intermediating organizations, such as democracy groups, appears to be a redistribution of information and resources in ways that are causing changes in state‐society relations, making the country more pluralistic and contributing to consolidating democracy. Democracy groups and other civil society organizations are providing a widening circle of Thais with virtually unprecedented opportunities to participate in the policy‐making process. Yet despite their accomplishments, these groups might have greater consolidating effects if they themselves adhered more to democratic norms and procedures. Nevertheless, without democracy groups and other civil society organizations, Thailand would be less democratic than it is, although democracy is not fully consolidated yet.     

Digging up Spain's past: consequences of truth and reconciliation

Over the last decade the issue of transitional justice has attracted considerable media and academic attention. Diverse countries including such high profile cases as Chile, South Africa and the former East Germany have attempted to grapple with the complex question of how to respond to human rights abuses committed under a previous regime. Transitional justice generally surfaces as an issue during democratic transition. It is less common for this issue of past human rights abuses to be raised when democratic transition has been completed and democracy is fully consolidated. The subject of this article, however, is Spain, where the human rights abuses committed during the 1936–39 civil war, and the long Francoist dictatorship that followed, have only recently come to the fore, a full quarter of a century after the transition to democracy. The article argues that the current struggle to recover the bodies of the disappeared, and their historical memory, represents a significant case which not only provides new insights into the particular democratization process in Spain but also provides more general lessons for other countries grappling with similar problems.     

World politics and social movements: the Janus face of the global democratic structure

This article advances a theoretically informed understanding of the relationship between world politics, democracy and social movements. The pivot of the discussion is the concept of a global democratic structure. The global democratic structure is rooted in changes taking place after the end of the Second World War, but has become globally dominant only after the end of the Cold War. The global democratic structure is undergirded by powerful political, security and economic interests. At the same time, however, it provides opportunities for social critique and change. This potential is exemplified through a discussion of the role of social movements in world politics. Social movements are influential through discursive means. The article offers a number of propositions about the conditions for social movement success and failure in the global democratic structure.     

Demand for democracy in resilient authoritarianism: evidence from rural China

This article investigates the sources of public demand for democratic institutions under authoritarian rule. While a growing body of literature recognizes that in authoritarian polities such as China, economic development does not lead to democratization in a linear fashion, our understanding of the sources of democratization in resilient authoritarianism remains limited. This article provides an empirical test of the three most compelling theories to subsequently emerge: modernization theory, social capital theory, and institutional theory. The results of a survey conducted in the countryside of Zhejiang and Sichuan provinces provide support for the institutional approach in understanding public demand for democracy in rural China, while the modernization theory and social capital theory are shown to be less useful. Specifically, results show that people working in the government system are core supporters of the regime, whereas income, education attainment, social trust, and one’s satisfaction with regime institutions turn out to be irrelevant and do not serve as direct sources of public demand for democracy. These results extend our understanding of the complex interaction between an authoritarian regime and its people, shedding new light on the democratic prospects for resilient authoritarianism.     

What does democracy mean? Activist views and practices in Athens,Cairo, London and Moscow

We shed light on the discontent with and the appeal of democracy by interviewing some of the most committed critical citizens: core activists in street protests. Based on interviews in Athens, Cairo, London, and Moscow, we found that they rejected representative democracy as insufficient, and believed democracy to entail having a voice and a responsibility to participate intensively in political decision-making. Activists saw themselves as engaged in prefigurative politics by fostering democratic practices within the movement and, ultimately, in society, but also raised concerns about internal power dynamics reproducing existing inequalities and exclusions. The insistence by activists that citizens have both a right and a duty to participate should be taken more seriously by political scientists and policymakers, not just as a threat to democracy and democratization, but as an opportunity. However, contemporary social movements are not straightforward sites of prefiguration, but sites of struggle between experimental and traditional forms of organizing, between inclusive aspirations and exclusive tendencies.     

The social factory of democracy in underdeveloped Spain

This article aims to analyse the contribution made by Christian movements towards constructing a democratic citizenship in an authoritarian context in the backward province of Albacete. Our study attempts to analyse the efforts made by grassroots Catholic sectors to foster democratic enclaves free from the interference of the Francoist state in 1960s and 1970s Spain. These alternative social spaces enabled new habits of civil resistance that confronted the socio-cultural hegemony of authoritarian values. As a result, throughout these years, various social groups started to challenge the sense of the regime's impregnable unity. This grassroots experience with the “power of the powerless” laid the foundations for negotiations among the political elites during the transition to democracy in Spain.     

从社会运动到内战的演变机制 ——基于中东变局的考察

受到中东变局波及的中东国家,尽管结构背景大同小异,但各国爆发的社会运动带来的国内影响却截然不同,如突尼斯和埃及发生了较为平和的变革,而利比亚、叙利亚却爆发了内战。社会运动在不同的国家之所以产生不同的结果,原因在于抗议者能否形成跨阶层动员以及军队的立场选择。抗议者形成跨阶层动员,是社会运动得以持续并实现规模扩大的前提;在大规模社会运动面前,军队内部是否发生分裂,则决定该国是否爆发内战。就此而言,社会运动演变为内战需要两个条件,一个是形成跨阶层动员,一个是部分军队支持抗议活动或在抗议活动中保持中立。这一分析模式有助于研究者对社会运动是否会演变为内战进行预测。     

The Moore thesis: what's left after 1989?

This article reconsiders the work of Barrington Moore and his critics on the historical emergence of democracy in the light of post-communist democratization. What are we to make of a region which violates Moore's dictum – “No bourgeoisie, no democracy”? Using the tools of comparative historical analysis, it makes sense of how democracy emerged in the region by developing a theory which both explains why this was possible and what social actors were essential to this outcome. With attention to patterns of social development in the region, the politics of elite alliance in the final phase of communism, the strength of civil society at extrication, and the role of the international system, it explains differences in regime outcomes across the region.     

‘The sword of justice’: South Pacific trade unions and NGOs during a decade of lost development

Trade unions are typified as having ‘two faces’—one of social justice and the other of vested interest. This article examines the tensions and difficulties confronted by trade union movements in the South Pacific seeking to balance the ‘two faces’ of unionism during a period of political and economic instability in the region. It looks at the difficult choices that trade union movements in Papua New Guinea, the Fiji Islands, and the Solomon Islands have had to make to preserve their interests in response to sweeping micro‐economic reforms and how they have sought to work with civil society organisations to restore political and social stability. The paper draws out some tentative lessons that may enable South Pacific unions to better respond to these difficult challenges.     

Inclusive institutions and stability of transition toward democracy in post-civil war states

This article attempts to bring together research on democratization and democratic consolidation with research on civil war termination. The post-civil war environment is contentious and the transition toward democracy achieved after a civil war is susceptible to failure. The side that wins the democratic elections in a post-war state may use its democratically won power to dismantle the institutions of democracy and repress the opposition. The fear of constant marginalization in the political processes as well as the fear of being repressed might create incentives for the defeated party to return to civil war. By utilizing the expected utility framework, this article suggests that former rivals would support democratic transition if they were confident that inclusive institutions ensured that they could achieve their political interests through the democratic processes. After analysing the data on post-civil war transitions toward democracy (TTD) from 1946–2005, I found that the proportional representation system and the parliamentary system are the most important institutions that help sustain the post-civil war TTD.     

Narrative and elucidating the concept of democracy: the case of Myanmar’s activists and democratic leaders

Narrative analysis has been widely employed in the social sciences. Yet there has been no systematic application of narrative theory to the study of how the word “democracy” is given meaning by political actors. Using the empirical example of the Burmese democracy movement in the lead up to the historic 2015 election victory of the National League for Democracy, this article argues that narrative analysis can contribute in unique ways to the interpretive task of “elucidating” the concept of democracy. Tracing plot and character construction within activist and aid worker stories about democracy in Myanmar, this study reveals three prominent and diverging narratives of democracy within and around the movement; a liberal narrative, centring on liberal democratic institutions and values, a benevolence narrative, focussing on the value of moral leadership and selflessness, and an equality narrative, highlighting the importance of cultural reform towards greater relational equality. Attention to these narratives has implications for donor “democracy promotion” strategies raising new questions about the role of formal institutions of democracy, the perceived source of “solutions”, and the impact on internal struggles within democracy movements.     

Revisiting the crisis of representation thesis: the Indian context

This article addresses the ‘crisis of representation’ thesis by examining some of the findings of a survey conducted in Delhi in 2003. On the basis of the data collected during the course of the survey, it revisits two rather significant questions that have been thrown up by the thesis. First, how valid is the assumption that people have lost confidence in the capacity of political parties to represent them in forums of policymaking? Second, have people really come to believe that civil society groups, such as non-governmental organizations, can better help them resolve the oft intractable problems of everyday life? The answers to these questions could help to throw light on two vital political and theoretical issues: the relationship between citizens and the world of representative politics in particular, and the adequacy of representative democracy in general. The findings of the research project tell us that the crisis of representation runs deep and that people seem to have lost confidence in the ability or indeed the political will of all organizations, whether they belong to the political or the civil domain, to address their basic problems.     

Democratization and decline of trust in public institutions in Hong Kong

The article examines the considerable literature on the relationship between sustainable development and democracy beginning with an exploration of the concepts. Various models have been put forward to describe this relationship and these can be viewed as various pathologies of development that may trap the unwary. Participation and empowerment are seen as a key to sustainable development by many authors, although there are widely differing interpretations of what this should mean. The search for people's empowerment has centred on moves towards decentralization and the strengthening of civil society. Decentralization has proved extremely difficult to implement in practice and having civil society act as a balancing mechanism to the power of the political elite has often proved to be no less illusory. Political participation is no guarantee of sustainable development as local and national elites will inevitably try to hijack the process. Whilst there is no strict correlation between democracy and sustainable development some items in the democratic package are capable of being prioritized and can help build sustainable development, in particular transparency in the management of resources, protecting human rights and encouraging social participation.     

The role and example of Chilean and Argentinian Mothers in democratisation

This paper explores the development issue of democratisation from a gendered perspective, emphasising the need to look for the building blocks of democracy within civil society sectors where women play a key role. Chilean and Argentinian women prove an important example for sustainable political development through their roles as Mothers, particularly in the 1980s in the movements to protest against political disappearances. The author seeks to demonstrate how these women's practical endeavours have made them an indispensable ingredient in the achievement of real democratic development at the grassroots level, and how they serve as a model for policymakers in developing countries elsewhere.     

Class forces,transition and the Arab uprisings: a comparison of Tunisia,Egypt and Syria

This article intervenes into an ongoing debate on authoritarian regimes in the Arab world following the uprisings of 2011, in particular addressing the perceived failure of those uprisings to bring about “transition” to liberal democratic models. Drawing upon the method of comparative historical sociology used in seminal analyses of democratization and dictatorship in Europe, Asia and the Americas, the article seeks to explain the varying trajectories of the Arab Uprising states in terms of several structural factors, namely the balance of class forces, the relative autonomy of the state and the geo-political context. The article provides an empirical comparison of the cases of Egypt, Tunisia and Syria as points on a continuum of outcomes following the Arab uprising. The article mounts a critique of the absence of class analysis in mainstream transition theory and hypothesises instead an important role for workers’ movements in bringing about even basic elements of liberal democracy. The empirical comparison is shown to support this hypothesis, demonstrating that in Tunisia, the state where the worker's movement was strongest a constitutional settlement has been reached while Syria, the state with the weakest and least independent workers’ movement has descended into counter-revolution and civil war: the case of Egypt lying between these two poles.     

When do people pay attention? Violence and non-violence in political movements and the differential media attention provided

Media can dictate what people see, but an individual’s choice in media consumption can also determine what stories the media report. This paper demonstrates that people show a greater interest in large-scale protests when the use of violence is employed, though this trend does not strongly hold in every case. Google search Trend data are analysed across five recent political movements to determine at which points in a movement media attention peaks. The data are compared to the timelines of these protests with a specific emphasis on when major violent events occurred. The level of violence that occurs in a movement is potentially correlated with how many times the region experiencing the movement is searched. Some movements however do a good job at generating attention without violence, and violence does not guarantee a large audience. The Google Trend data provide valuable information about what causes people to pay attention to world events and can be used to analyse political movements and potentially make predictions about violent and non-violent conflict.