Secularizing Islamism and Islamizing Democracy: The Political and Ideational Evolution of the Egyptian Muslim Brothers 1984–2012

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) emerged in Egypt in the early twentieth century to resist secularism and political pluralism in favour of religious revival and a unitary Islamic state. After three decades of political participation culminating in its formation of a government in Egypt, the MB has prioritized electoral paths to power, while claiming to defend individual rights, popular majorities and a civil state. Nevertheless, the MB's discourse continues to straddle religious and secular terrain: in recent election campaigns, MB leaders promised to build an ‘Islamic state’ and a ‘caliphate’, all the while insisting that the people, not God are the source of all power. What explains these contradictions, and what do they tell us about the Brotherhood's apparent adoption of political and ideational pluralism and democratic values? The article contends that the MB's ambivalence about democracy is not a sign of dissimulation or lack of ideological evolution. Instead, it has its roots in a 30-year process of partially adapting to democratic and ‘secular’ political ideas by reframing them in religious terms which, however, resulted in creating what the article discusses as a hybrid ‘secularized’ Islamism. This hybridization has both enabled and constrained the Brothers' adaptation to democracy in the post-Mubarak period.     

Democratic Tradition and the Failed Presidency of Lucio Gutierrez in Ecuador

In April 2005, Lucio Gutiérrez was removed from office in the context of a fast‐growing economy. With no economic hardship to fuel social outrage, the failure of Gutiérrez illustrates how political and institutional factors can be the most important forces determining presidential survival. In this article, we qualitatively analyse the path toward confrontation between Gutiérrez and the congressional opposition which led to his political demise. We find that Ecuador's weak democratic tradition working through more proximate causes – radicalism, normative preference for democratic institutions and a negative institutional equilibrium – coupled with other institutional and political variables accelerated Lucio Gutiérrez's fall from power.     

Neopopulism and its limits in Collor's Brazil

The election of Fernando Collor de Mello as President of Brazil in 1989 was regarded as part of a new wave of neopopulist leaders in contemporary Latin America. The article explores the conditions of emergence of Collor's neopopulist project, the nature of his appeal and the causes of his downfall. The article argues that the emergence of Collor's neopopulist challenge was the result of a crisis of representation in Brazil's edging democratic order. The article concludes that Collor's demise from power in 1992 had to do with the precarious nature of his appeal and his failure to ground his project in a new set of political institutions.     

Strong Societies, Wed Parties: Regime Change in Cuba and Venzula in the 1950s and Today

The literature on the origins of democratic institutions is split between bottom‐up and top‐down approaches. The former emphasize societal factors that press for democracy; the latter, rules and institutions that shape elites' incentives. Can these approaches be reconciled? This article proposes competitive political parties, more so than degrees of modernization and associationalism, as the link between the two. Competitive political parties enhance society's bargaining power with the state and show dominant elites that liberalization is in their best interest; the parties are thus effective conduits of democracy. In the context of party deficit, the prospects for democratization or redemocratization are slim. This is illustrated by comparing Cuba and Venezuela in the 1950s and 1330s.     

Parties,political decay,and democratic regression in Sri Lanka

Among states that gained independence following World War II, Sri Lanka was widely considered to have a good chance of succeeding democratically. This promise was sundered when successive leaders embraced ethnocentric policies that were geared towards empowering the majority Sinhalese Buddhists at the expense of minorities. This ethnocentrism contributed to civil war and adversely affected the country's institutions – including the island's political parties. The attendant political decay has not only led to malgovernance and democratic regression, it has pushed the country in an authoritarian direction. Sri Lanka thus represents a classic case of how ethnocentrism can undermine democratic institutions and of the long-term negative consequences.     

Israel: ethnocracy or multicracy?

Much of the recent academic literature that assesses democracy in Israel labels it either as incomplete or flawed, yet such literature employs minimal systematic analysis of how the state is actually governed. Since the 1990s, there has been a tendency to describe the Israeli political regime as an ethnocracy. This article argues that the term ‘ethnocracy’, when applied to Israel, has certain weaknesses and instead proposes the concept of ‘multicracy’ (multiformocracy) as a more appropriate term by which to describe Israel's political organization. It will demonstrate that existing Israeli democratic institutions do not control the state's policymaking in full and that several politically important processes are controlled or at least influenced by various other politically active forces. Whilst these forces can influence, stimulate, inhibit, and otherwise change governmental decisions and actions, they can be labeled as kratiae. While the capacity of Israel's democracy to govern is weak, these other kratiae can intervene in policymaking and the state's regime acts as democracy-dominated multicracy.     

Authoritarianism and UMNO's factional conflicts

Abstract

Do democratic political regimes facilitate more robust environmental and natural resource regulatory policies? Yes, in many cases. Using detailed cases of natural resource policy making in Thailand, however, we find that neither political parties nor civil society nor state institutions do well in representing diffuse interests, mediating among conflicting ones or defining compromises and securing their acceptance by most key players. Gains in environmental or natural resource policy making have not been dramatically more likely under democratic regimes than under “liberal authoritarian” ones with broad freedoms of speech and association. We argue that Thailand's democratic political system features weak linkages between groups in society and political parties, lacks alternative encompassing or brokering institutions in civil society, and that these features account for a tendency for political democracy to fail to deliver on its policy potential in Thailand.     

Contacting and Complaining: Political Participation and the Failure of Democracy in Russia

This article analyzes mass political participation as a factor contributing to the failure of Russian democracy. Data from public opinion surveys and firsthand interviews are used to evaluate patterns in Russian citizens' engagement in nonvoting political participation from the late Soviet era to the present. The article asks whether Russians expanded their participation in acts constraining elites, such as party-development work and protests, and investigates practices of contacting public officials, considering the implications of contacting for the deepening of democratic institutions. The factors contributing to patterns of participation, including the weakness of Russia's party system and the paucity of Russian civil society, are also discussed.     

Opposition politics in Malawi: hopeful signs amid the warnings

Across Africa, governments are either peacefully and legitimately ousted, or forced to share power, through the ballot box. In Malawi, the emergence of many political parties since the advent of a multiparty dispensation in 1993 signalled the flourishing of pluralism and opposition politics. However, in the May 2009 elections, the Malawi Congress Party and the United Democratic Front, which constituted the opposition, were largely rejected by the electorate in favour of President Bingu Mutharika's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), credited for his sound economic policies emulated internationally. The reduced presence in parliament of parties outside of the Democratic Progressive Party coalition is troubling. This development has stimulated debate on the opposition's role and ability to defend democratic governance, and the challenges facing it. On the other hand, the DPP's landslide victory has to some degree demonstrated that it is possible to ‘de-regionalise’ and ‘de-ethinicise’ the configuration and alignment of political interests and forces, confirming for other African countries that the analysis of African politics need not be oversimplified into ethnic and cultural terms as is often the case. This paper contends that democratic governance is promoted by a credible opposition that effectively acts as an alternative government. Therefore, there is need for addressing the major factors that militate against its operations to enable it play its rightful role in Malawi's emerging democracy.     

Political Institutions and Conservation Outcomes: Wildlife Policy in Zambia

“Messy” democratic political institutions might generate ineffective conservation policy watered down by competing interest groups and rival political parties. A hardcore environmentalist may believe that a pro‐conservation dictatorship would be the type government best able to meet her goals. Such an environmental fantasy became reality in Zambia under President (1972‐1991) Kenneth Kaunda. But despite his dictatorial powers, he did not have much success in curbing the poaching epidemic that swept through Zambia in the 1970s and 80s. The structure of the one‐party state, together with a fall in the price of Zambia's principal export (copper) and a concomitant increase in the value of many wildlife products, created an environment that generated incentives for politicians, bureaucrats, and citizens to disregard Kaunda. This analysis challenges conventional wisdom about the politics of one‐party states. It shows that even in the case of one‐party government, the structure of political institutions remains critical to the extent of a dictator's control.     

The Politics of Professionalism in Russia

A political scientist examines the ways in which the word "professional" constructs group identities in the world of politics. Applying discourse analysis to 34 texts generated by interviews with prominent members of Russia's political class in the Gorbachev, first and second Yel'tsin, and Putin administrations as well as the democratic opposition, this article seeks to determine how the word "professional" has been used by past and present members of Russia's political class. Two opposing discourses that constitute its meanings are outlined. The study's results are framed in a dynamic model of change in Soviet and Russian political communication.     

Participatory constitution-making and why it matters: A review of the Egyptian experience

This article considers the making of Egypt's post-Mubarak constitution after considering the fact that participatory constitution-making is accepted as a democratic norm allowing citizens to be involved in the creation of their constitution and their future. The author argues that the process by which a constitution is made is crucial for the framing and legitimising of that constitution. Therefore, political elites and state institutions should not wholly control the process. The views of two schools of thought – idealism and realism – are considered. These views, together with the influence of the state and the concept of participation of the citizenry in the constitution-making process, are measured against international law requirements and further applied in a critical evaluation of Egypt's constitution-making process from 2011 to 2014.     

Nationalism and democratic construction: the origins of Argentina and Uruguay's political cultures in comparative perspective

The article focuses on the different effects the formation of national identity had on the development of political democracy in Uruguay and Argentina. Uruguay's process of state building after the civil wars relied on political consensus regarding the rules of the game: the concept of political democracy became an integral part of Uruguay's collective identity. In Argentina, political elites after the civil wars divided on the question of national identity and the substance of political democracy. Uruguay's political identity as a partidocracia [rule by parties] is not a guarantee against authoritarianism, but the country's democratic political culture is resilient, permeating even the armed forces. In Argentina, the exclusionist character of the political process invites authoritarianism, whether of the liberal or populist‐democratic variety. This article focuses, first, on the different models of collective identity that developed after independence; second, on the distinct roles played by the two hegemonic parties in each nation ‐ the Colorados under Batlle and the Radicals under Yrigoyen; and finally, on the authoritarian periods both countries experienced in the 1930s.     

The 2008 Guinea Conakry coup: Neither inevitable nor inexorable

This article examines the issue of democratic governance in Guinea–Conakry and the impact that international donors had on the political debate in the last years of the Conté regime. Our contention here is that there was and continues to be an evolving pluralism and embryo group of self-defined civil society organisations in both urban and rural Guinea but as a result of the December 2008 military coup opportunities have been lost in the promotion of democratic governance and more pluralistic group dynamics in Guinea. Support for indigenous (and self-defined) civil society groups, including the development of political parties by the international community, is essential to the return to institutionalised governance.     

Limited Pluralism in a Liberal Democracy: Party Law and Political Incorporation in South Korea

ABSTRACT

Formal modes of political incorporation in South Korea rest on a foundation of limited pluralism. The notion that the state should impose rigid boundaries on political representation pervades the country’s democracy. This notion is enshrined in law – in particular in the constitution’s Article 8 and in the Political Parties Act – and is upheld and perpetuated by the judiciary, the election commission, and the parties that dominate representative institutions. Labour is particularly disadvantaged by the limited pluralism contained in party laws. The role of party law in shaping modes of political incorporation is frequently overlooked. This account of party law in South Korea echoes this issue’s attention to the quiet ways that the state in Asia has silenced or ignored particular groups while maintaining the formal institutions of electoral democracy. In this case, the effect is to facilitate a rightward drift by the state as left-leaning actors face greater challenges in contesting elections.     

Do social networks bridge political divides? The analysis of VKontakte social network communication in Ukraine

New electronic forms of political communication have become increasingly popular in countries with weak democratic institutions. The effectiveness of these new forms of association in altering political behavior, however, remains uncertain even in developed democratic regimes. This paper investigates connections between regional variation in electoral behavior and regional distribution of electronic social networks in the case of Ukraine's polarized and institutionally unstable democracy. Our analysis of online networks shows that, somewhat contrary to conventional wisdom, electronic communication does not bridge political divides. This finding casts doubt on the effectiveness of online forms of political communication as a source of behavioral change.     

Electoral Systems in a Divided Society: The Case of Afghanistan

Electoral systems can be powerful instruments for shaping the content and practice of politics in divided societies, such as Afghanistan; and their design needs to be closely linked to context. This paper explores the suitability of Afghanistan's electoral mechanisms in light of the nation's political system, social divisions, and the process, which led to their adoption. There is no perfect electoral system; and the winners of the country's first-ever presidential election and the subsequent assembly elections face the formidable challenge of transforming Afghanistan from a war torn fiefdom into a nation. Hamid Karzai's victory and Afghanistan's improved, although fragile, security environment appear to represent an important step toward democracy. Yet, elections and electoral mechanisms are a necessary but insufficient means to the introduction and endurance of constitutional democratic government. The legitimacy of Afghanistan's new democratic institutions will rest on the government's progress in producing results, such as disarming the private militias of powerful commanders, some of whom represent sizeable ethnic minorities, and curbing the burgeoning poppy cultivation. An electoral system is but one piece, significant but not the linchpin, of the schema of Afghan political dynamics.     

Civil society in Georgia: expectations versus reality

Academic analysts, political commentators and activists in Georgia are almost unanimous in their assessment that the public in Georgia is generally passive, civil society is weak, and that this may be one of the key reasons why Georgia – despite numerous democratic openings – keeps failing to consolidate its democratic institutions. In order to measure the strengths and weaknesses of Georgian civil society, the present article uses interviews with respondents from the Georgian non-governmental organization sector and academia on two areas: (a) citizen participation: to what extent is civic participation in the public sphere aimed at advancing shared interests and (b) influence on policy-making: to what extent is Georgian civil society able to foster popular influence on political and economic developments. This paper applies the concept of delegative democracy to contemporary developments in Georgia, and argues that one of the major factors which contribute to this trend in Georgia is a weak civil society and, therefore, a lack of intermediary institutions to safeguard democratic norms.     

Planteamiento teórico y evidencia del desplazamiento gradual del Estado autoritario al Estado pragmático en México: la transformación de las élites

Analyses of political change in Mexico since the government shift achieved in July 2000 have been undertaken with a focus on the democratic political transition that led to the so-called alternation, that is, from the stance of a classical approach about State transformations that led from an authoritarian stage to democratization. Analytical approaches in Mexico concerning political change are focused on the undeniable democratic practice at the ballot boxes; however, the outcomes' transparency, the adoption of a new regime, and the procedural condition of the young Mexican democracy make it appropriate to consider this shift from the realist view of the exercise of power and major mechanisms for the establishment of élites' political-governmental decisions. Thus, pragmatism is put forward as an alternative political approach. This article intends to establish that political change in Mexico has gradually changed from its past condition as an authoritarian State to become a pragmatic State, favored by the advent of governmental technocracy, globalization, the market, the us hegemonic ideology, and the obvious involvement of corporate elites contained in State power institutions.     

Publisher's Comment

The extent to which post-communist European and Eurasian countries have instituted democratic politics varies widely. The countries possessing the generally accepted attributes of a democratic polity are without exception members of the European Union and most of the countries that have moved in that direction in recent years are prospective members. This article examines the association between membership in the EU and the development of a democratic polity. It suggests the aspiration to membership and awareness of the EU's political condition for membership contributed, along with attributes related to spatial location, political antecedents, transitional politics, and economic ties, to the development of a democratic polity.