Frozen political liberalization in Jordan: The consequences for democracy

Prompted by serious economic difficulties, in 1989 the Jordanian government launched a series of political liberalization measures aimed at rejuvenating the country's parliament and party politics, and restoring freedom to the media. Despite much initial enthusiasm, the liberalization process has become frozen and there have been few substantive moves toward a meaningful transition to democracy. Two developments have combined to result in this democratization freeze. One is the reluctance of the state to give up many of its powers in relation to the forces of civil society. A second is the inability of professional associations and the emerging parliamentary opposition bloc to formulate and institute viable links within themselves and with other social actors in an attempt to pressure the monarchy for more political concessions. The hybrid, semi‐democratic, absolutist monarchy that has emerged in the process has enhanced its popular legitimacy by adopting certain democratic trappings, which, in the short run at least, appear detrimental to a more meaningful transition to democratic rule.     

Transnational citizenship: problems of definition,culture and democracy

There is widespread disagreement over whether transnational citizenship provides defensible extensions of, or meaningful complements to, national citizenship. A significant strand of criticism relies upon empirical arguments about political motivation and the consequences of transnationalism. This paper addresses two questions arising from empirical arguments relating to the nation state and democracy. Do the alleged cultural requirements for effective political action provide an insuperable barrier to transnational citizenship? Does transnational citizenship necessarily require a commitment to transnational democracy? I argue that these largely empirical criticisms do not succeed in casting doubt upon the normative plausibility or practical viability of transnational projects. On the first question, I point to a growing transnational political culture that serves to motivate transnational citizens. On the second question, I argue for a legitimate category of transnational citizenship that, although inspired by cosmopolitan morality, is different from it, and that does not require transnational democracy.     

Confining conditions and breaking with the past: Historical legacies and political learning in transitions to democracy

Historical factors have more often been assumed than explored in democratization studies. Their importance has been acknowledged broadly in reference to matters of change and continuity, including the effects of predecessor dictatorships on transition trajectories. But historical factors can have varied and sometimes persistent influences on the democratization process as a whole. These influences therefore need examining in a systematic way that considers also their implications for democratic consolidation. Developing from Kirchheimer's thesis of ‘confining conditions and revolutionary breakthroughs’, the discussion turns to forms of interaction and the changing balance between past impacts and the dynamics and changing agenda of regime change. A three‐part approach is presented and applied: historical patterns and historical memory; historical legacies and ‘overcoming the past'; and, then, political ‘learning’ and its ability to look to the future. It is generally argued that focusing on ‘history’ opens up new avenues in the study of regime change.     

Political culture in Turkey: Connections among attitudes toward democracy,the military and Islam

Against the background of Turkey's continuing but unconsolidated democratic transition, this article examines the nature and determinants of attitudes toward democracy held by ordinary Turkish citizens. Using data from the World Values Survey conducted in Turkey in 1997, it seeks to contribute to a growing body of literature concerned with the relationship between political culture and democratization. Although this relationship has not been fully explicated, the authors share the view of those scholars who believe that the existence of democratic attitudes and values among a country's population is no less important than are democratic institutions and procedures for advancing and eventually consolidating a democratic transition. Accordingly, the study seeks to shed light on the following interrelated questions: To what extent does the Turkish population hold attitudes supportive of democracy? What are the most important determinants of popular support for democracy? What factors account for any observed variance in relevant political attitudes? What is the relationship between attitudes toward the military and attitudes toward democracy and governance? What is the relationship between personal religious attachments and attitudes toward democracy and governance?     

简析中亚国家政治转型中的部族政治文化因素

历史上,中亚地区由于没有稳定的国家概念和固定的国家边界,人们的部族属性往往成为民族认同的重要标志之一,而带有宗法制和家长制的部族政治文化对于中亚各民族的政治行为方式、部族内部的稳定以及部族问的和睦共存,起到了积极的促进作用.本论文将对各具地区特色的部族政治文化及其基本特征进行剖析,探究中亚地区这一传统的政治文化现象对中亚各国的政治发展进程所产生的现实影响.     

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.     

Collective memory of the Spanish civil war: The case of the political amnesty in the Spanish transition to democracy

This article focuses on two interrelated, but relatively ignored, factors in the Spanish transition to democracy (1975–78): first, the most important political mobilizations of the period in which the people demanded an amnesty for the political prisoners of the dictatorship; second, the presence of a collective memory of the Spanish civil war (1936–39), whose repetition was now to be avoided at all costs. It argues that the many collective actions that took place in Spain in favour of an amnesty were, to a great extent, inspired by a widespread desire for reconciliation among Spaniards. Spanish society had suffered a deep split as a consequence of the civil war and, because of the presence of the Francoist regime, no symbolic measures to reach national reconciliation had taken place. The climate generated by the often violent confrontations between police and demonstrators (and not only during demonstrations in favour of the amnesty), and the number of resulting deaths and injuries, made the people remember the serious problems of public order that had confronted the Second Republic (1931–36), whose collapse marked the beginning of the Spanish civil war. These factors help explain why the main political parties of the left felt the need to contain the very mobilization process that they had helped to create. The generous amnesty of October 1977, passed by a democratically elected parliament, was interpreted as the symbolic overcoming of the division among Spaniards that resulted from the dramatic civil confrontation of the 1930s.     

The economic transition in Central Asia: Implications for democracy

Ten years have now passed since the August coup of 1991 heralded the collapse of the Soviet Union. Whilst many of these states have successfully navigated themselves through the processes of democratic transition and consolidation, others have not. Although each of the states within the Central Asia region have held elections so that we can speak of some sort of formal democracy having been established, substantive democracy within these states is either absent or falls short of the mark. This article identifies the obstacles to democratic transition and consolidation arising from current economic circumstances and the leaders' appraisal of the political costs of further democratization.     

Transition in El Salvador: A multi-layered process

This paper reflects on the obstacles facing Salvadoran NGOs in the transition from war to peace. Firstly, on the difficulties inherent in the peace process itself: insufficient structural change; the trap of electoral politics; a transition process that was too narrowly defined; and the impossibility of reconciliation without addressing the need for collective memory, public responsibility, or justice. Secondly, on the difficulties peculiar to NGOs and popular organisations in El Salvador: the difference between the skills and resources they had developed in war and those needed in peace; the problems in establishing their role in the national reconstruction plan; and the fact that they were themselves made up of people who were still suffering the psychological wounds of war.     

Competing perspectives on democracy and democratization: assessing alternative models of democracy promoted in Central Asian states

This study examines alternative understandings of democracy and democracy promotion advanced by the US, EU, Russia and China in Central Asia using frame analysis. In the context of this study, ‘frames’ refer to the relatively cohesive sets of beliefs, categories and value judgements as well as specific ways in which these ideas are packaged for the targets of international democratization. The study assesses the implications of alternative representations of democracy promotion and competing models of governance for the prospects of democratization in Central Asia. It concludes that the substance of US and EU democracy promotion in Central Asia has neglected the cultural and political contexts of these states, while the Russian and Chinese models of governance and development have provided a better match to the interests of the ruling elites.     

Police demilitarisation: cops,soldiers and democracy

Arthur Costa is a PhD candidate at the University of Brasilia, Brazil. His forthcoming book is entitled Transição e Tutela: Militares e Políticos na Nova República. Mateus Medeiros was Co-ordinator of the Office for Human Rights of the City of Belo Horizonte and a lecturer in legal philosophy at the Federal University of Ouro Preto, Brazil. He is now a legislative analyst at the Human Rights Commission, Brazilian Chamber of Deputies.¹     

Terrorism and democracy: What recent events disclose

This paper is the second in a series of analyses which explore relationships between terrorism and democracy. In this instance, the authors use the Rand‐St Andrews Chronology of International Terrorism for 1994, as well as the US State Department's Patterns of Global Terrorism collection of events for 1995. The authors use these data sets to determine if there is a linkage between the occurrence of terrorist attacks and the type of incumbent political regime in the countries where they are perpetrated. The two classifications of political regimes were drawn from Robert Wesson's 1987 study Democracy: a Worldwide Survey and the Freedom House Publication Freedom in the World for 1984–85 and 1994–95, in order to evaluate the impact of regime change on the incidence of terrorist events. Our principal finding, consistent with earlier work, is that terrorist events are substantially more likely to occur in free and democratic settings than in any of the alternatives. We do discover, though, that change in and of itself makes a difference. Countries which underwent regime change in the period under consideration were more likely to experience terrorism than countries which did not.     

Constructing new environments versus attitude adjustment: contrasting the substance of democracy in UN and EU democracy promotion discourses

In contrasting UN with EU democracy promotion discourses, the article contributes to the debate on the substance of EU democracy promotion by approaching the question of ‘democratic substance’ from the vantage point of sovereignty. For its analytical framing, it draws on relevant aspects of Foucault's work on power. The article suggests that, due to their diverging obligations to sovereignty, the substance of democracy promotion in UN discourses revolves around an institutional-centric understanding, whereas in EU discourses we see a significant reconceptualization of democracy as a norms-based concept. The latter does not aim at the government of society but the ethical self-governance of socially embedded individuals. It is argued that, with the decreasing purchase of democracy as a universal political project and the growing concern with local contexts, the EU's norms-based conception emerges as better equipped to adapt to contemporary challenges of governing. The article concludes with raising some doubts about the democratic promise and potential of the democratic rationality underpinning EU discourses. Democracy, participation and political change are no longer conceived in terms of shaping and influencing public agenda but refer to socially shaping and influencing subjective perceptions and behaviours.     

Identity and democracy in the Baltics

The purpose of this essay is to consider the probable impact of issues related to ethnic and cultural identity on democratization in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Particular attention will be given to the demographic make‐up of the Baltic states, which are home to a high percentage of Slavs (mostly Russians but also Belarusians, Poles, and Ukrainians), and to those factors which affect how these Slavs and the majority Baits: (1) identify themselves; and (2) identify with the new states in which they find themselves. The key question is the degree to which civic democracy can prosper in a newly emerging multi‐ethnic state. The answer is important not only for the Baltic states but also for the other new multinational states that have emerged from the former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe in the past few years.     

Local democracy and popular participation: Chile and Brazil in comparative perspective

This article examines the factors that facilitate or impede the strengthening of popular participation in local democracy in Latin America through a comparative analysis of the Chilean and Brazilian cases. This comparative analysis illustrates the importance of structural reforms, the institutional configuration of local government and the role of political parties vis-à-vis civil society in either enhancing or impeding popular participation in local democracy. In short, it argues that popular participation will be strong and effective where structural reforms expand the resource base and policymaking authority of local leaders, local institutions strengthen accountability and facilitate citizen input in decision-making, and political parties attempt to organize and mobilize groups and constituents at the grass-roots. Where these conditions do not hold, the reverse will be true. These conclusions are drawn from analysis of the development of popular participation and local democracy in Porto Alegre, Brazil (a positive example) and Santiago, Chile (a negative example).     

The Structure of Negotiation: Lessons from El Salvador for Contemporary Conflict Resolution

During more than a decade of violent conflict (1980–1992) involving the military, rebel forces, and paramilitary "death squads," El Salvador suffered some 75,000 casualties, mostly civilians. After three years of negotiations, the government and the largest rebel group signed a historic comprehensive peace accord that brought an end to the war and instituted wide-reaching political and social reforms. This agreement, and the peace process that produced it, has been widely hailed as a successful example of a negotiated end to civil war. In order to understand the conditions that led to the 1992 Chapultepec Peace Accords ending the war, this article tests ripeness theory in the context of the Salvadoran peace process.
This article affirms the validity of theories of ripeness and the mutually hurting stalemate as structural explanations for the initiation of dialogue and notes the role of "indicators of ripeness" in forcing the parties to recognize a hurting stalemate that may already exist. It also proposes several hypothesized explanations for the effectiveness of the Salvadoran negotiations themselves. These explanations include the presence of strong, empowered policy entrepreneurs on both sides with the political will and capability to make credible commitments; the combination of internal and external pressure for a negotiated solution that raised the cost of defection; and the active involvement, based on consent of both parties, of a neutral, empowered, and credible mediator who provided both technical assistance and vigilance to move the process forward. After analyzing the Salvadoran case through this theoretical lens, the article applies the same concepts to contemporary conflict cases such as Iraq and Colombia, discussing how the lessons learned in El Salvador do and do not provide instructive guidance for managing civil conflicts today.