Emancipative values in Georgia: An individual level analysis

The main interest of the study is to determine whether and how an individual's perceived economic situation is related to emancipative values in Georgia. The analysis employs individual-level survey data from nationwide public opinion surveys conducted by the Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC) in 2010 and 2011 in Georgia. Several dimensions of emancipative values are examined: gender equality, tolerance, participation, autonomy, interpersonal trust, satisfaction with life and religion. Level of education and age are brought in as alternative factors accounting for value change. The results are ambiguous and only partially confirm validity of the emancipative theory of democracy on an individual level in Georgia.     

Decline of the founding values of democracy and weakening of quasi-missionary institutions

The decline of confidence in the institutions of European democracy constitutes a phenomenon requiring investigation of the factors behind this discontent. Both civic perceptions and the erosion, of fundamental beliefs contribute to hypothesizing about attempts at “constructing meaning.” This leads in turn to a consideration of quasimissionary institutions and to the resultant effects of indifference in the contemporary world.     

Autocratic opening to democracy: why legitimacy matters

As recent experiments in democratisation around the world show signs of achieving success, or failure, or more usually something in between, the attention of democracy promotion actors in the international community is turning to the world's remaining outstanding autocracies. This article identifies the autocracies, discusses the notion of autocratic opening, and explores how opening can come about, with particular reference to international intervention. The article argues that, for identifying the prospects for autocratic opening and determining the forms of constructive engagement available to international actors, it is useful to distinguish between the different grounds on which various autocracies claim legitimacy, and the specific vulnerabilities to which their principal legitimating base gives rise.     

International assistance and democracy: Assessing efforts to assist post-communist development

This article surveys political development frameworks for analyzing the post-Communist transition to political democracy. Parallels with postcolonial events in Third World countries should caution against overoptimism about the prospects for mutually reinforcing economic and political development. In general, the study of Third World political development suggest that rapid regime transition with low mass participation is unlikely to result in sustainable democratic politics, especially where severe economic dislocations are present. High rates of participation during regime change may lead to rapid disillusionment with the performance of postrevolutionary government. It is thus argued that states wishing, for various reasons, to assist in smoothing the transition from communism should pay heed to the cautionary experience of Third World development assistance and monitor the political dimensions of the transformation, such as the stability of coalition governments, electoral turnout, ethnonationalism, as well as the orthodox economic indicators like inflation and rates of domestic investment. With respect to international assistance to the former Communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe, the article shows that the capacity of the Group of Twenty Four (G-24) donors to aid economic recovery is well below what is requested, or needed. Despite hosting a donor summit, the United States is taking a far less prominent role in the post-Cold War donor community than was the case in the analogous program for post-World War II recovery. This is having an impact on both volume and coordination of assistance. Finally, a strong, possibly ideological, preference among donors for finding private sector recipients for the bulk of assistance may erode the capacity of the post-Communist states to provide both infrastructure and political stability needed for investor confidence. Those making decisions about levels and modes of Western assistance should look beyond economic indicators of privatization as criteria for continued support and retain, where possible, political development objectives in both financial and project assistance. While we must not assume that the record of supporting democracy in Central and Eastern Europe will prove to be any better than in many Third World regimes, the greater security salience of Eastern Europe’s stability adds urgency to the task of applying political development lessons to the post-Communist experience. Malcolm J. Grieve specializes in political development and international political economy and in his current research is exploring the connections between the two fields with regard to analysis of the post-Communist transition. Recent publications include “Economic Imperialism”, in D. Haglund and M. Hawes, eds.,World Politics: Power, Interdependence and Dependence (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990) and “Debt and Imperialism: Perspectives on the Debt Crisis,” in S. Riley ed.,The politics of global debt (Macmillan 1993). ...in Central and eastern Europe, we are seeking to demonstrate in practice the idea that free government can mean good and stable government, and that free enterprise can mean economic opportunity for all.U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Lawrence S. Eagleburger, 27 February 1991. There is nothing more difficult to arrange, more doubtful of success, and more dangerous to carry through, than to initiate a new order of things.Machiavelli, The Prince     

Adapting to democracy: Societal mobilization and social policy in Taiwan and South Korea

Democratic transition and institutional change do not necessarily guarantee greater political inclusion, particularly when it comes to the policy influence of civil society groups. Rather, political inclusiveness requires strategic adaptation among societal actors. Actors need to seize upon opportunities endemic to political change. This article provides a comparative analysis of health care reform in democratizing Taiwan and South Korea, focusing on two social movement coalitions, the National Health Insurance Coalition in Taiwan and Korea's Health Solidarity. Both movement coalitions were critical in shaping welfare reform trajectories in Taiwan and South Korea during the late 1990s, despite having been shut out from earlier episodes of health care reform. I argue that these groups (1) strategically adjusted their mobilization strategies to fit specific political and policy contexts, (2) benefited from broad-based coalition building, and (3) effectively framed the issue of social welfare in ways that gained these movements ideational leverage, which was particularly significant given the marginal place of leftist ideas in the postwar East Asian developmental state model. Joseph Wong is assistant professor of political science at the University of Toronto. He is the author ofHealthy Democracies: Welfare Politics in Taiwan and South Korea, published by Cornell University Press. Wong received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The author thanks Edward Friedman, Jay Krishnan, Ito Peng, Richard Sandbrook, Linda White, along with the three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Thanks also to Uyen Quach and Nina Mansoori for their research assistance.     

Latvians on the road to market democracy

This article began as a contrast between the politics and processes of budgeting and revenue mobilization in Latvia under Soviet rule and as an independent country. The dynamics of events in Latvia and opportunities presented during our research broadened its scope. The article became a broad review of the economic and political processes in Latvia since independence, with an emphasis on the effects of attitudes inherited from fifty years of Soviet rule, traditional Latvian values, and emerging public policies. The interdependence between government and business infrastructure is dramatically shown in the bank scandal of 1995. The bank failures caused near catastrophic reductions in tax revenues.     

Leaking Superpower: WikiLeaks and the contradictions of democracy

While US government agencies endorse and support the democratic potential of the internet and social media overseas, the criticisms of the WikiLeaks disclosures of US diplomatic cables reveal the bias in relation to transparency and democracy. This poses a wider problem of connectivity combined with hegemony. This paper discusses what the criticisms of the WikiLeaks disclosures reveal. After discussing the enthusiasm about ‘hyper-connectivity’, the paper turns to the WikiLeaks disclosures, and next spells out global ramifications of the leaked cables, the problems of transparency and hegemony, frictions between democracy and democratisation, and the role of banks blocking donations to WikiLeaks.     

Elites and institutions in conservative transitions to democracy: Ex-authoritarians in the Brazilian National Congress

Although many students of democratization accept that new democracies are impacted by various legacies of the previous authoritarian regime, little attention has been paid to the relationship between characteristics of the political class and the imperative of institution building in the new democracies. Conservative transitions to democracy, where continuity in the political class remains high despite the change in regime, are notably dependent on the participation of ex-authoritarians in the process of institution-building. Many such elites were socialized to marginal or fictional representative institutions under authoritarianism, leading them toward political practices which may subsequently be inimical to the development of effective instituions under democracy. A study of ex-authoritarians in the Brazilian Congress reveals their weaker commitment to legislative institutionalization, thus illustrating some of the tradeoffs and drawbacks of conservative transitions to democracy. Timothy J. Power is assistant professor of political science at Louisiana State University. He is currently writing a book on the role of the political right in Brazilian democratization.     

(Re)conceptualising democracy: the limitations of benchmarks based on neoliberal democracy and the need for alternatives

The 21st century has witnessed increasing dissatisfaction with existing democratic institutions and processes and the growth of alternatives to representative democracy. At the same time arguments are emerging that conventional standards for evaluating democracy are ‘out of touch’ with current realities; in particular, with popular understandings, experiences and aspirations of what democracy should look like. This paper draws on empirical research in Caracas, Venezuela into how Venezuelan people understand democracy, in order to build a case that current evaluatory benchmarks are inadequate for understanding complex processes of social change based on more direct and participatory forms of democratic engagement.