Transitions to Democracy

The world circa 1960:

• 20-25 stable liberal democracies,

• some newly independent countries trying liberal democracy

• 80-90 countries either under or tending toward some form authoritarianism

B

located primarily in located primarily in

• Western Europe,

• North America,

• & the white commonwealth:– Australian– New Zealand– Canada

Latin America:

alternated between shaky polyarchies and military government, e.g.

• Argentina

• Brazil

• Peru

• Mexico

• Paraguay…..

Communist party-state systems:

• USSR• Poland• Czechoslovakia• Hungary• Bulgaria• Romania

• Yugoslavia

• People’s Republic of China

• North Korea• North Viet Nam• Albania

The three waves of democratization

• 1rst wave: 1870-1910

• 2nd wave: – interwar period

• followed by a reverse wave

– post world war II: re-democratization of • Italy• West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany)• Japan

• 3rd wave -- from 1970… to present?

1970s

• Greece (military dictatorship, 1967-74)

• Portugal 1974– end of Salazar-Caeteno regime (from 1931)

• Spain (1975)– end of Franco regime (from 1939)

1980s

• collapse of military regimes in Latin America– Argentina, 1982– Brazil (opening 1977-85)– Uruguay– Paraguay– Bolivia...

1989and beyond

• fall of Berlin Wall• collapse of ‘satellite’

Communist regimes in east central Europe

• break-up of the Soviet Union

• Chile• Republic of South

Africa• South Korea• Taiwan

Transitional vs. consolidated democracies

• Transitional democracies -- newly launched or re-democratized liberal democracies

• Consolidated democracies:– no significant challenges to regime

– “the only game in town”

• Some questions:– How do we know a regime is consolidated?

– How do regimes become consolidated?

Categories, scales, classificatory schemes:

• levels of measurement

• classifying democracies– liberal democracy v. non-democracy..– More democratic v. less democratic– more stable v. less stable

• degrees of consolidation: more consolidated v. less consolidated

Levels of measurement

• nominal (discrete categories)

• ordinal (a scale: positions on it are either: more or less, higher or lower

• interval (a scale on which positions reflect measured differencesb

What do we expect to find in a democracy?

• Inclusiveness– all or almost all of the adult population entitled

to vote

• Elections– free and fair elections -- elections with choice

• competition

Countries and where they fit:

Dimensions of liberal democracy:

Mexico before 2000:

– constitution– some restrictions on political rights– some competition– elections, but not entirely free and fair elections– dominance of the PRI (Party of Institutional

Revolution)

Nigeria:

• First Republic: parliamentary system, 1961-1966

• civil war blocking Biafran secession, 1966-1969

• military rule:– General Gowan, 1969-

1975General

– Obasanjo, 1975/6-1979

• Second Republic: presidential system from 1979-1983

• Military governments from 1983-1993– General Babangida

– General Abacha

• Redemocratization in 1993 under Obasanjo