SLIDES: Democratization

Introduction to Comparative Politics

  • Course Code: POG240
  • Lecture Number: 7
  • Topic: The Third Wave of Democratization
  • Date & Context: Talk given during a class session in a restaurant setting, possibly referring humorously to historical context with a reference to Roerich, a significant figure in the cultural history.

Waves of Democratization

  • Defining Waves: The concept of political waves refers to significant global trends in the spread of democracy.
  • Graphical Data:
    • Axises: The graph shows the number of countries on the vertical axis against the years from 1900 to 2017 on the horizontal axis.
    • Key Observations:
    • The first wave of democratization began around the early 20th century.
    • The second wave followed World War II.
    • The third wave began in the 1970s with a significant increase in democratic nations.
    • There’s evidence of ongoing democratization as well as autocratization within previously democratic countries.

Historical Theories of Democracy

  • Economic Development and Industrialization:
    • Key Factors influencing democratization include:
    • Urbanization, Industrialization: Economic growth leads to a middle class that demands civil liberties and political rights.
    • Education and Secularization: Higher education levels often correlate with democratic values.
  • Rise of the Middle Class:
    • Civil Liberties and Political Rights: A healthy middle class advocates for political participation and civil society engagements.
  • Workers' Demands:
    • Emergence of labor movements advocating for rights, liberty, and equality.
  • Political Culture/Religion:
    • Different religious traditions have unique impacts on democracy: Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Islam, Confucianism each provide different contexts and frameworks for understanding political engagements.
  • Important Note: There are caveats and exceptions to the above factors.

Causes of the Third Wave of Democratization (Huntington)

  • Key Factors Leading to the Third Wave:
    1. Crisis of Autocratic Regimes: Many authoritarian governments faced crises, either militarily or economically.
    2. Postwar Economic Prosperity: Economic growth led to a burgeoning middle class that pushed for democratic reforms.
    3. Second Vatican Council (1963-1965): This significant religious event may have encouraged greater faith participation in political structures.
    4. Shifting Foreign Policies: Changes in the diplomatic strategies of Western democracies and the USSR contributed to the environment favoring democracy.
    5. Snowballing/Demonstration Effects: Successes of some countries in transitioning to democracies encourage others to follow suit.

Significant Events Influencing Democratization

  • Second Vatican Council:
    • An influential meeting of the Catholic Church that aimed to address relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the modern world.
  • Military Defeats: Autocratic regimes often suffered military defeats that weakened their authority and legitimacy.
  • Perestroika and Glasnost in the Soviet Union:
    • Under Mikhail Gorbachev, policies of reform and openness catalyzed democratic movements in Eastern Europe.
  • The Fall of the Berlin Wall:
    • Marked a significant moment, leading to a chain reaction (or snowballing effect) of democratization across Eastern Europe.
  • Regime Change in East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa:
    • Various countries went through transformative changes during this time.

Factors Shaping Transitions to Democracy (1) (Przeworski)

  • Stages of Democratization:
    • Liberalization:
    • Initiated from both above (government actions) and below (civil society), leading to openings and decompression of political regimes.
    • However, these processes may prove unstable.
    • Democratization:
    • Refers to the extraction phase where military cohesion and organizational integrity evolve.
    • Constitutional Balance:
    • Involves a negotiation of forces, knowledge, and dynamic contestation.
    • Negotiation Factors:
    • The extent of knowledge about each party's preferences and stability leads to different outcomes influenced by the level of mobilization.

Factors Shaping Transitions to Democracy (2) (Przeworski)

  • Table Presentation:
    • Radical and moderate factions may align with liberalizers to challenge hardliners within regimes.
    • Types of Outcomes:
    • Old Regime Survival: Authoritarian regimes may survive in some form with various concessions made (e.g., democracy without guarantees).
    • Reform Alliances: Moderates, radical, and authoritarian reformers can negotiate terms during transitions to establish democracies with varying degrees of success.

Types of Democracies Evolving Post-Transition (Collier & Levitsky)

  • Categories of Democracies:
    • Partial Democracies:
    • Defined by diminished attributes according to procedural minimum definitions.
    1. From Procedural Minimal Definitions:
      • Limited Democracy: Lacks comprehensive electoral processes.
      • Oligarchical Democracy: Control concentrated among elite.
      • Male Democracy: Excludes significant portions of the population from electoral processes.
    2. From Expanded Procedural Minimums:
      • Electoral Democracy: Elections occur but lack effective governing power.
      • Guarded, Protected, and Tutelary Democracies: These terms describe various levels of restricted powers.

Class Exercise Prompts

  • Discussion Questions:
    1. Which theories of democratic transition do you find most interesting or persuasive? Explain your reasoning.
    2. Does the typology of ‘partial democracies’ aid in understanding and comparing existing democracies? Discuss.