Shaking off the neoliberal shackles: “democratic emergence” and the negotiation of democratic knowledge in the Middle East North Africa context

ABSTRACT

There is a general assumption in democracy promotion that liberal democracy is the panacea that will solve all political and economic problems faced by developing countries. Using the concept of “good society” as analytical prism, the analysis shows that while there is a rhetorical agreement as to what the “good society” entails, democracy promotion practices fail to allow for recipients’ inclusion in the negotiation and delivery of the “good society”. Contrasting US and Tunisian discourses on the “good society”, the article argues that democracy promotion practices are underpinned by neoliberal parameters borne out from a reliance on the transition paradigm, which in turn leave little room to democracy promotion recipients to formulate knowledge claims supporting the emergence of alternative conceptions of the “good society”. In contrast, the article opens up a reflective pathway to a negotiated democratic knowledge, which would reside in a paradigmatic change that consists in the abandonment of the transition paradigm in favour of a “democratic emergence” paradigm.     

Consistency in constitutional design and its effect on democracy

ABSTRACT

Does the art of crafting and amending a constitution lead to an internal consistency among constitutional provisions, and if so, what effect does that have on countries’ democratic performance? Drawing from theoretical claims on the separation of power and electoral legitimacy, this article develops a concept that identifies the institutional characteristics of consistency and inconsistency in the constitutional design with the example of the presidency. Empirically, this concept is focused on aligning or counterbalancing the mode of presidential election and the de jure power of the president. Based on a comparative perspective of republican parliamentary and semi-presidential systems, the article focuses on the empirical trends of consistent and inconsistent design and addresses their effect on democratic development. The findings show a balance between consistent and inconsistent design in terms of quantity. The influence on democratization varies considerably across different measures but I find significant support for a positive effect of inconsistency on liberal democracy, freedom, horizontal accountability and the rule of law.     

Present at the Destruction? The Liberal Order in the Trump Era

Abstract

The election of Donald Trump in 2016 sent shock waves across political classes globally and prompted debates about whether his ‘America first’ agenda threatened the liberal international order. During his first year in office, Trump seemed determined to undermine the hallmarks of the liberal international order: democracy, liberal economics and international cooperation. So, are we witnessing the emergence of a “post-liberal” and “post-American” era? Four sources of evidence help frame – if not answer – the question: history, the crisis of liberal democracy, Trump’s world view, and the power of civil society (globally and nationally) to constrain any US President. They yield three main judgements. First, continuity often trumps change in US foreign policy. Second, the liberal international order may have been more fragile pre-Trump than was widely realised. Third, American power must be put at the service of its own democracy if the US is to become the example to the world it used to be.     

Global diffusion,policy flexibility,and inflation targeting

ABSTRACT

A diverse group of over 30 countries located all over the world—such as the UK, Colombia, and Ghana—introduced inflation targeting, which is a monetary policy that seeks to control inflation through a pre-announced target. Fully institutionalized democracies adopted the policy first because the core features of inflation targeting are consistent with the principles of a liberal democracy. But why was inflation targeting also introduced by less-democratic countries? This article develops the argument that decision makers of less-democratic countries became more likely to adopt inflation targeting when they observed that nearby countries increased the flexibility of the policy. The statistical analysis of data from 76 countries between 1989 and 2013 supports this hypothesis. The finding that the change of a policy toward a more flexible framework drives its global spread addresses a blind spot in the more recent policy diffusion literature.     

Does China’s middle class prefer (liberal) democracy?

Many surveys show that China’s political regime, under the Chinese Communist Party’s authoritarian rules, enjoys a high level of public support. However, it is still uncertain whether China’s emerging middle class will become the “agent of democratization” as suggested by modernization theory. Using the data of Asian Barometer Survey conducted in China in 2011, this article demonstrates that the relationship between class identity and preference for liberal democracy in China may be inverted U-shaped. The Chinese middle class shows a higher preference to features of liberal democratic regimes than its counterparts of the lower- and upper-class. Members of the Chinese middle class also tend to regard democracy as the best form of government. Thus, the middle class has the potential to initiate democratization in China if the Chinese government fails to keep satisfying the middle class’ quest for economic well-being and protection of property rights.     

A distributional theory of economic democracy

In the twentieth century, while political democracy triumphed economic democracy failed both as an idea and in practice. A case for reviving the idea of economic democracy is made in terms of protecting political democracy. Economic democracy has conventionally been understood as a matter of bringing economic power under the control of collective political power. The idea is here reformulated as a matter of redistributing economic power between persons, of giving people a share in economic power directly rather than through elected representatives. Political democracy is assumed, which is to say that political power is under the control of the middle class. The question then is under what conditions the middle class might want and think it could use political power to redistribute economic power. The conclusions are that there is in advanced capitalist democracies considerable scope for the redistribution of economic power between the rich and the middle class. As for the empowerment of the poor, however, anti-poverty policies beyond the containment of poverty are unlikely to emerge today in countries where that did not happen under earlier historical conditions.     

Book reviews

Liberal democratic governments may differ in both their kind and degree of democracy. However, the literature too often conflates this distinction, hindering our ability to understand what kinds of governing structures are more democratic. To clarify this issue, the article examines two prominent contemporary models of democracy: developmental liberal democracy (DLD) and protective liberal democracy (PLD). While the former takes a ‘thicker’ approach to governance than the latter, conventional wisdom holds that these systems differ only in kind rather than degree. The article tests this assumption through an empirical comparison of electoral, legislative, and information-regulating institutions in two representative cases: Sweden and the United States. The empirical findings lead us to the conclusion that developmental liberal democracies represent not only a different kind, but also a deeper degree of democracy than protective liberal democracies. The implications for democracy promotion appear substantial.     

Terrorism,Human Rights and Law Enforcement in Spain

ABSTRACT

Terrorism systematically violates human rights and disrupts basic political processes common to liberal democracies. Combating terrorism is thus necessary in order to protect these fundamental rights and maintain the well functioning of tolerant polities. However, state initiatives put in place to cope with terrorism may also damage human rights, even when these measures are formulated by elected accountable authorities and implemented in the context of open societies. Spain has precisely been among those European countries most affected by the wave of terrorism initiated more than three decades ago across western industrial societies, and thus where violations of fundamental rights as well as obstacles to the exercise of civil liberties as a consequence of such violence became particularly severe. Also, a case where effective rule of law was temporarily damaged in the fight against the ethnonationalist terrorism perpetrated by ETA (an acronym for Euskadi ta Askatasuna, meaning Basque Homeland and Freedom) but successfully restored by efforts from both state institutions, as a result of an effective division of power, and civil society. It is therefore an experience providing substantive knowledge and valuable insights on how to counter terrorism in accordance with the principles and procedures of democracy. Accordingly, this paper aims at a better understanding on the interrelated issues of terrorism, human rights and law enforcement in a context of political change.     

Evaluating the potential of Protestant Christianity to stimulate democracy and good governance in sub-Saharan Africa through the valuing of the individual

ABSTRACT

The global distribution of Christians is expected to change by 2050, with the largest proportion of Christians – more than a billion – residing in sub-Saharan Africa. Historical and empirical studies have argued for a positive relationship between the proportion of Christians – Protestants in particular – and the development of liberal democracy. A key explanation for this positive influence is cultural, namely the valuing of the individual. Could the growth in Christianity have the potential to influence democratic development and good governance in the sub-Saharan region? To test our hypotheses – (1) sub-Saharan states with proportionally larger Protestant populations are more likely to have higher levels of democracy and good governance, and (2) sub-Saharan states with growing Protestant populations are more likely to have increasing levels of democracy and good governance – we employ a longitudinal and cross-sectional study (a panel of data) using data from the World Christian Database, Polity IV and the International Country Risk Guide. Our data show that the population share of Protestants is positively related with both levels of and growth in democracy and good governance. With the spread of Protestantism we could expect the future improvement of democracy and governance in the region.     

Liberation movements and stalled democratic transitions: reproducing power in Rwanda and South Africa through productive liminality

The lack of convergence towards liberal democracy in some African countries reflects neither a permanent state of political aberration, nor necessarily a prolonged transitional phase through which countries pass once the “right” conditions are met. Examining the cases of two ruling parties, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and the African National Congress in South Africa, we develop the concept of productive liminality to explain countries suspended (potentially indefinitely) in a status “betwixt and between” mass violence, authoritarianism, and democracy. On the one hand, their societies are in a liminal status wherein a transition to democracy and socio-economic “revolution” remains forestalled; on the other hand, this liminality is instrumentalized to justify the party’s extraordinary mandate characterized by: (a) an idea of an incomplete project of liberation that the party alone is mandated to fulfil through an authoritarian social contract, and (b) the claim that this unfulfilled revolution is continuously under threat by a coterie of malevolent forces, which the party alone is mandated to identify and appropriately sanction.     

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.     

Democracy,human rights,and U.S.‐Africa trade

The nexus of economic and political relations is a central issue in international relations, and the influence of political liberalization upon trade ties lies at the center of much liberal theory. However, many facets of the empirical linkage between political liberalization—including democratization and the respect for human rights—and trade remain uninvestigated. Examining the case of U.S.‐Africa trade, this study considers two unexplored facets of these political determinants of trade: (1) the role of human rights conditions, and (2) the robustness of the relationship between democracy, human rights, and trade across a subset of vertical dyads. Using a gravity model to assess trade patterns, we find that neither democracy nor human rights conditions has a significant impact upon U.S. trade to Africa.     

Contestation and Transformation. Final Thoughts on the Liberal International Order

Abstract

The liberal international order, the inseparable mix of US geopolitical power and ideational project of organising international relations along normative frameworks such as internationalism, institutionalism and democracy, is reeling under the pressure of profound systemic changes such as greater interconnectedness and multipolarity. Predictions abound that increasing great power competition, most visibly at play in geographical areas of contested orders, will eventually tear it down. However, even if major actors – the US included – display a selective, irregular and often instrumental commitment to the liberal order, they are still repositioning themselves in that order and not outside of it. In addition, conflict is not the default outcome of order contestation, as hybrid forms of governance are possible even in troubled regions. No doubt, the world of tomorrow will be less American-shaped and less liberal, but transformation is a more plausible future than collapse for the liberal order.     

Democracy promotion and the challenges of illiberal regional powers: introduction to the special issue

This special issue examines Western efforts at democracy promotion, reactions by illiberal challengers and regional powers, and political and societal conditions in target states. We argue that Western powers are not unequivocally committed to the promotion of democracy and human rights, while non-democratic regional powers cannot simply be described as “autocracy supporters”. This article introduces the special issue. First, illiberal regional powers are likely to respond to Western efforts at democracy promotion in third countries if they perceive challenges to their geostrategic interests in the region or to the survival of their regime. Second, Western democracy promoters react to countervailing policies by illiberal regimes if they prioritize democracy and human rights goals over stability and security goals which depends in turn on their perception of the situation in the target countries and their overall relationships to the non-democratic regional powers. Third, the effects on the ground mostly depend on the domestic configuration of forces. Western democracy promoters are likely to empower liberal groups in the target countries, while countervailing efforts by non-democratic regional powers will empower illiberal groups. In some cases, though, countervailing efforts by illiberal regimes have the counterintuitive effect of fostering democracy by strengthening democratic elites and civil society.     

Does Democracy Decrease Fear of Terrorism?

ABSTRACT

Fear is an integral part of terrorism. Fighting fear can thus be a crucial part of counterterrorist policies. In the case of terrorism, citizens look to the state for protection. Yet, most studies of terrorist fear emphasize individual-level factors. We lack studies that link fear to features of the state, especially whether democratic states are capable of reducing fear among its citizens. Our study aims to fill part of this research gap by asking whether democratic government reduces or increases fear of terrorism. We find that there is substantial cross-country variance in citizens’ fear of terrorism. The results suggest that fear is more widespread among citizens in non-democratic countries compared to citizens in democratic countries. Actual exposure to terrorist attacks has no impact on citizens’ fear of terrorism when we account for whether the country is a democracy or not. Hence, democratic government displays resilience towards fear mongering.     

Democratization as liberation: competing African perspectives on democracy

Do Africans tend to view democracy in more procedural or more substantive terms? This article argues that African endorsements of liberal and procedural understandings are not as pervasive as much of the literature on democratization suggests. Drawing upon Afrobarometer survey results as well as extensive fieldwork and interviews conducted over the past decade in South Africa, it demonstrates both the historical development and significance of these definitional understandings. By employing a substantive approach and thereby bringing questions of poverty and material inequality to the centre of the analysis, this article seeks to offer a perspective on democratization that helps to explain many of the challenges to the institutionalization of democratic regimes that procedural understandings fail to capture.     

Holy Trinities,Rivalry Termination,and Conflict

In this article we attempt to correct a number of gaps in the current literature on strategic rivalry. First, we argue that liberal and realist theories of conflict and cooperation have been generally ignored by scholars engaged in rivalry research. Secondly, we argue that current rivalry research fails to disentangle termination processes from conflict within rivalries, mainly due to problems with common operationalizations of rivalry. To bridge these gaps, we test the effects of liberal variables-manifested in the Kantian tripod (democracy, interdependence, and IGO membership)-and what we more loosely term the realist tripod (bipolarity, shared threat, and capability balance) on both rivalry termination and the probability that rivals will engage in a militarized conflict. We conduct this test utilizing a new data set of strategic rivalries compiled by Thompson (1999, 2001) which corrects the tautological operationalization of rivalry commonly used in rivalry research when conflict is the dependent variable. Overall, our results paint a variegated picture, underscoring the importance of rivalry as a special class of dyadic relationship. While realist variables better explain rivalry termination, the direction is opposite that predicted by some realist hypotheses; among liberal variables, only democracy is a robust predictor of both termination and conflict.     

The Barriers to Media Opening in Latin America

Despite the spread of electoral democracy, few Latin American media systems today encourage the deepening of democracy. We attribute this outcome to (a) generalized weakness in the rule of law, (b) holdover authoritarian legislation, (c) oligarchic ownership of media outlets, (d) uneven journalistic standards, and (e) limited audience access to diverse sources of information. Reforms designed to address these problems could include the appointment of special prosecutors to investigate crimes against journalists; replacement of criminal libel laws with civil procedures; legislation protecting journalists' sources and guaranteeing transparency in government; the establishment of nonpartisan boards to allocate broadcast concessions, administer state-owned stations, and distribute government advertising; user fees to expand public media; and various measures to enhance professional standards.     

Introduction: Globalization and change in India

ABSTRACT

This series of papers on Globalization, Institutional Change, and Politics of reforms in India highlights some of the key characteristics of institutional change and globalization in India. This special issue points in the direction of three important conjectures on globalization and change by bringing together a few key aspects of the process of institutional change and engagement with the global in India. First, India’s liberal democracy has embraced globalization and globally influenced institutional change in an embedded liberal way. Second, this is a saga of gradual and largely endogenous change. India is deeply affected by the demonstration effect of global best practices but builds rather more after its own internal consensus. Finally, even though India is not a classic developmental state, the state is an important factor in promoting change.