Regional Integration and Democratic Consolidation in the Southern Cone of Latin America

Regional integration has been a significant factor shaping the consolidation processes of southern cone democratizing states. Regional integration strategies have allowed transitional regimes across the southern cone to neutralize threats of democratic reversals by military leaders, effectively undermining the long-standing geostrategic rationales used by foreign policy and military elites to justify military intervention in domestic politics. The dramatic rise of interstate co-operation has accelerated and ensured the consolidation of democracy across the region through regional trade blocs, the development of an embedded regional commitment to democracy, and a 'defence of democracy' regime. At the same time, democratization has enhanced regional economic and security integration strategies, through increased domestic transparency, the impact of pro-democratic ideational forces and the externalization of democratic principles. 'Structurational' analysis of the processes of democratic consolidation in Brazil and Argentina is used to demonstrate the influence of economic integration and the emergent regional security regime on democratic consolidation, as well as the role democratization played in facilitating these developments in regional integration.     

Military extrication and temporary democracy: the case of Pakistan

Pakistan's 1988 transition to democracy defies most of the conventional wisdom on democratization as well as the bulk of the literature on democratic transitions. This peculiar case can be understood as a case of ‘temporary democracy’, in which democracy emerges as a short-term outcome that is not likely to be sustained. Pakistan's military leaders chose to democratize because of the high short-term costs of repression coupled with the low long-term costs of allowing democracy. The authoritarian elite agreed to allow democratization knowing that the prospects of democratic consolidation were dim. In this sense, the same factors that made the consolidation of Pakistan's democracy unlikely made the transition possible.     

The liberal in liberal democracy

This article argues that much of the work on democratization and democratic consolidation is obscured by a conceptual fog, when at the very least some of this confusion could be ameliorated by parsing out components that are obviously liberal in nature. An admission of the importance of liberalization and liberal consolidation as distinctly different in form and measurement from democratization and democratic consolidation are the first steps to better research on the varieties of causation that constitute and propel the dissolution of more authoritarian regimes towards more liberal democratic regimes. Acknowledging that the liberal in liberal democracy is unpopular for some, and that liberal democracy does not necessarily mean American liberal democracy, go a long way to freeing these terms from ethnocentric misconceptions, as well as cementing analytical clarification. Though all modern democracies have both liberal and democratic components, democratic consolidation does not guarantee liberal consolidation.     

Poverty reduction and democratization – new cross-country evidence

The rapid decrease in absolute poverty across the developing world has received much attention. However, there have been few systematic attempts to analyse the political consequences of these developments. This article builds on the improved availability of household income data from developing countries to document a small but statistically significant impact of lagged poverty rates on a range of democracy indicators. The results hold across a battery of sensitivity and robustness tests. I also show that poverty reduction has a stronger effect on democracy than alternative predictors that are more widely used in the democratic regime transition and consolidation literature, such as average income and relative inequality (the Gini index). However, I find weaker effects of poverty on indicators of government quality and a declining influence of poverty reduction on democracy over time. These results point to more structural obstacles to democratic consolidation in lower-income regions, such as a tendency by populist leaders to exploit the economic grievances of vulnerable lower-middle classes.     

Enforcing consensus? The hidden bias in EU democracy promotion in Central and Eastern Europe

Democracy is a primary export norm of the European Union (EU). It has also played a key role in the conditionalities that have governed the accession processes of new member states in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The EU has often been accused of offering little guidance regarding the specifics of desirable democracy models and the means of their consolidation. But are these accusations justified? In the first part of this article a detailed examination of European Commission opinions and reports reveals that it has consistently promoted a specific model of democracy in future member states. It shows a strong bias in favour of Lijphart's model of consensus democracy, which is indiscriminately advocated for prospective member states. The second part of the article draws attention to the serious obstacles which exist in the region to the realization of this model. We question the wisdom of the Commission's one-size-fits-all democratic model given these obstacles and the real-life diversity of political contexts in the region.     

Thickening Civil Society: Explaining the Development of Associational Life in Mexico

Scholarship has demonstrated the important role that associational life has played in democratic transitions, democratic consolidation, and making democracy work. Unfortunately, however, many countries that have recently completed the transition to democracy lack a strong history of autonomous associations. Given their importance, this research seeks to understand how nonprofit organizations emerge in current-day Mexico, a recent transition country with a traditionally weak associational life, historically controlled by the state. Through a comparison of four Mexican cities this research finds that a transition from one-party rule to competitive elections was necessary to break the incentives for clientelism. Even following the transition, however, the persistence of informal rules from the old regime operating in both government and society restricts the opportunities available to potential ‘public entrepreneurs’. As a result, such entrepreneurs are highly dependent on already existing social infrastructure to obtain necessary human, organizational, and financial resources.     

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.     

Horizontal accountability and the challenges for democratic consolidation in Africa: evidence from Liberia

Why are most African emerging democracies failing to consolidate and reach the two-turnover test? Most scholars attribute this to the poor quality of elections and limited institutionalization of vertical accountability, overlooking some important variables. This article challenges this conception both theoretically and empirically by focusing on the quality of horizontal accountability illustrated by observations of comparative interest in Liberia's emerging democracy. Since the end of Liberia's bloody civil war in 2003, two successive and successful democratic elections (2005 and 2011) have been organized, putting Liberia on the path towards democratic consolidation. When analysing the electoral mechanism of vertical2016 accountability, many scholars have been enthusiastic about the prospects of democratic consolidation in Liberia, most of them neglecting the horizontal accountability processes that are also crucial for the quality and durability of democracy. This article analyses the processes and challenges of democratic consolidation in Liberia by focusing on key institutions of horizontal accountability. It argues that although the country has made some progress towards democratization since 2005, the domination and centralization of executive power, weak and dependent institutions of horizontal accountability (legislature, judiciary, national elections commission, general auditing commission, and anti-corruption commission) are major challenges to the consolidation of democracy. These findings have important implications for our understanding of horizontal accountability and democratic consolidation in African emerging democracies.     

Elections and democratization in Honduras since 1980

Although Central America returned to electoral rule during the 1980s, lack of participation, political violence and militarization meant that democracy remained decidedly limited. This articles outlines the particularities of the transition to constitutional government for the case of Honduras, and examines the role of successive electoral processes on prospects for democratic consolidation, focusing on the relationship between electoral processes and the nature of the party system. It is maintained here that whilst the longevity of the bipartisan system has been an important element of stability, the nature of the two dominant parties (Liberal and National) has hindered the consolidation of a more democratic politics. However, the article also argues that successive elections have been the catalyst for limited modernization of the party system and have increased citizenship confidence in the electoral process, and that this ‐together with a gradual reduction in the influence of the military ‐ has strengthened future prospects for deepening democracy. None the less, the article concludes that unless a new relationship is established between political parties and civil society to ensure a more representative and participatory form of politics, democracy will remain limited in Honduras.     

The Limits of Electoral Democracy in Ukraine

In the past two years Ukraine has held new elections for both its parliament and president. Some might claim that these elections are evidence of democratic progress. However, elections are only a necessary, not sufficient component of democracy, and to make judgements about democratic consolidation solely on the basis of elections is to fall victim to the fallacy of 'electoralism'. While it is true that Ukraine does possess an electoral democracy, democratic consolidation remains elusive and is susceptible to a variety of problems. These include a weak civil society and weak political parties, regional divisions, unstable political institutions and a lack of the rule of law. By some measures Ukraine may even have regressed from 1994, as an oligarchy has consolidated itself and authoritarian trends are readily discernible.     

Stuck in transition: electoral processes in Zambia 1991–2001

Zambia has held three multiparty elections since its restoration of democracy in 1991. This peaceful transition raised expectations of a smooth process towards democratic consolidation. But similar to experiences in other African countries and Eastern Europe, the Zambian democratic process has remained stuck in a ‘transitional zone’ between actual democracy and authoritarian systems. This article argues that Zambian elections fall short of the expectations of a democratic process due to the institutional uncertainty surrounding elections and the weakness of the Zambian Electoral Commission in particular. The continued uncertainty – of the rules and regulations guiding elections and electoral administration – has maintained the same party in power through three consecutive elections, despite an alarming economic record.     

From contention to social bargaining: labour unions and democratic consolidation in Spain

The main objective of this article is to examine how the links between trade unions and affiliated political parties of the left influenced the strategies of labour during the transition and the early years of democracy in Spain. It argues that political partisanship is a key factor for understanding the unions' strategies. After a period of intense labour conflict during the transition to democracy, labour mobilization decreased and Spain's unions and other social actors initiated distinctive processes of social bargaining, starting in 1979. The central argument is that the relationship of unions and political parties in the authoritarian and transition periods was a major factor in conditioning strategies in the post-authoritarian period. In the end, the consolidation of Spanish democracy has led to the strengthening of the main trade unions. Contrary to what happened in other historical periods they used this power to contribute to governability and the consolidation of the new democratic regime.     

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.     

The Dearth of Jointly Dyadic Democratic Interventions

The Democratic Peace Proposition, which states that no two democracies have ever gone to war with each other, has been questioned by scholars who claim that such pacific behavior among free states does not apply to lower forms of conflict. In particular, Kegley and Hermann contend that democracies intervene in the affairs of other liberal states via overt military acts or covert machinations. In many cases, they argue that dyadic democratic interventions (DDIs) occur more frequently than would be expected given the number of jointly democratic dyads in the international system. I examine their research design and suggest changes to their concepts of states, interventions, and regime type, as well as their sample size and definition of dyads in the international system. I implement these changes and retest such arguments on a sample of interventions from 1945 to 1991. I find 11 cases where a democracy intervenes against another democracy, but these cases are rare in comparison to interventions conducted by democratic and/or autocratic states in undemocratic states, or by autocratic states against democratic states. Furthermore, these DDIs are less likely to occur than the presence of democracy in the international system would suggest.     

The evolution of South Africa's democracy promotion in Africa: from idealism to pragmatism

South Africa is an emerging power with fairly strong democratic institutions that were crafted during the transition from minority to majority rule twenty years ago. How has South Africa used its position and power to promote democracy in Africa? Against the backdrop of debates on democracy promotion by emerging powers, this article probes attempts by successive post-apartheid governments to promote democracy in Africa. We argue that although democracy promotion featured prominently in South Africa's policy towards Africa in the immediate post-apartheid period under Nelson Mandela, the administrations of Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma faltered in advancing democratic norms. This is largely because South Africa has confronted pressures to maximize pragmatic national interests, which have compromised a democratic ethos in a continental environment where these values have yet to find steady footing.     

Beyond the fallacy of coup-ism: conceptualizing civilian control of the military in emerging democracies

It is consensus in the democratization literature that civilian control of the military is a necessary ingredient for democracy and democratic consolidation. However, there is considerable disagreement on what civilian control of the military exactly entails and there is a lack of solid theoretical arguments for how weak or absent civilian control affects democratic governance. Furthermore, a considerable portion of the research literature is captured by the fallacy of coup-ism, ignoring the many other forms in which military officers can constrain the authority of democratically elected political leaders to make political decisions and get them implemented. This article addresses these lacunae by providing a new conceptual framework for the analysis of civil–military relations in emerging democracies. From democracy theory it derives a definition of civilian control as a certain distribution of decision-making power between civilian leaders and military officers. Based on this definition, the authors develop a five-dimensional concept of civilian control, discuss the effects of weakly institutionalized civilian control on the quality of democracy and address the chances for democratic consolidation.     

Democratic Transition and Institutional Crafting: The South Korean Case

The article first analyses the critical events leading up to democratic transition in South Korea and then examines the choices made regarding the new democratic rules during autumn 1987. Earlier studies have focused mainly on the new rules themselves, but few have analyzed the actual crafting process. This study remedies that oversight as it investigates not only what lay behind the choices made regarding institutional crafting, but also how the new rules shaped the founding elections of the new democracy. The article argues that some of the difficulties that South Korea has experienced in consolidating its democracy may in fact be due to flaws in the institutional crafting process during democratic transition. As such the South Korean case shows that the type of democratic transition may place certain restrictions on the comprehensive approach needed for an institutional crafting process that must go beyond the immediate electoral considerations of individual political leaders. It shows that close co-operation among oppositional forces is essential when during democratic transition institutional crafting takes place. The article reaches the conclusion that if these issues had been addressed in 1987, the alternation in power that occurred in late 1997 would probably have happened sooner.     

The Party Paradox: a Comment Nicolas van de Walle (Cornell) February 20, 2018

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes several stylized facts and implications concerning intra-party violence developed in the other articles of this special issue on intra-party violence in African electoral systems. It then turns more specifically to the implications of intra-party violence for democratic consolidation in the region, and argues that paradoxically, though parties are centrally important to democratic politics, the degree to which they are internally inclusive and participatory may not have much importance, or may indeed undermine democracy. Though they are perhaps the key actor on the path to a consolidated democracy, they tend to work best when they themselves are not internally democratic.     

The Durability of Imposed Democracy

Why do imposed democracies endure and how do policy choices by imposing states affect durability? To study these questions, we formulate expectations linking durability to structural domestic conditions, the level of domestic security in the state into which a polity is imposed, the policies of imposing states, and the regional environment within which an imposed democracy is nested. We use event history to test our expectations on a sample of democracies imposed during the twentieth century. We find that relatively immutable, structural conditions, such as ethnic cleavages, economic development, and prior democratic experience strongly influence the durability of imposed democracies. While some policy choices made by imposing states can impact the survival of imposed democracy, they do so only modestly relative to the environment in which a democracy is imposed.     

Conceptualizing and measuring subnational democracy across Indian states

India is often credited for its success as the world’s largest democracy, but variation in subnational democracy across its states has not been systematically incorporated into scholarship on subnational regimes. This paper develops a conceptualization of subnational democracy based on four constitutive dimensions – turnover, contestation, autonomy and clean elections – and introduces a comprehensive dataset to measure each of the dimensions between 1985 and 2013. The inclusion of India – an older parliamentary democracy with a centralized federal system – broadens the universe of cases for the study of subnational regimes, and reveals variation across constitutive dimensions that has not yet been theorized. The paper shows that threats to subnational democracy come from multiple directions, including the central government and non-state armed actors, that subnational variation persists even decades after a transition at the national-level, and that subnational democracy declines in some states in spite of the national democratic track record.