Since the momentous events of the late 1980s, democratic transition has been a widely studied phenomenon. Most scholars who have investigated the causes and implications of the global trend to ...democracy have argued that domestic politics is the leading determinant in the success or failure of transitions to democracy. In this book, Jon Pevehouse argues that international factors, specifically regional organizations, play an important role in the transition to and endurance of democracy. Domestic elites use membership of regional organizations to advance the cause of democracy since these organizations can manipulate the costs and benefits of democracy to important societal groups such as business elites or the military. Six cases (Hungary, Peru, Greece, Paraguay, Guatemala, and Turkey) examine the causal processes behind the statistical association between regional organizations and democratization. These findings bridge international relations and comparative politics while also providing guidelines for policy-makers who wish to use regional organizations to promote democracy.
New democracies around the world have adopted constitutional courts to oversee the operation of democratic politics. Where does judicial power come from, how does it develop in the early stages of ...democratic liberalization, and what political conditions support its expansion? This book answers these questions through an examination of three constitutional courts in Asia: Taiwan, Korea, and Mongolia. In a region that has traditionally viewed law as a tool of authoritarian rulers, constitutional courts in these three societies are becoming a real constraint on government. In contrast with conventional culturalist accounts, this book argues that the design and functioning of constitutional review are largely a function of politics and interests. Judicial review - the power of judges to rule an act of a legislature or national leader unconstitutional - is a solution to the problem of uncertainty in constitutional design. By providing 'insurance' to prospective electoral losers, judicial review can facilitate democracy.
The transformation of the American South--from authoritarian to democratic rule--is the most important political development since World War II. It has re-sorted voters into parties, remapped ...presidential elections, and helped polarize Congress. Most important, it is the final step in America's democratization.Paths Out of Dixieilluminates this sea change by analyzing the democratization experiences of Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina.
Robert Mickey argues that Southern states, from the 1890s until the early 1970s, constituted pockets of authoritarian rule trapped within and sustained by a federal democracy. These enclaves--devoted to cheap agricultural labor and white supremacy--were established by conservative Democrats to protect their careers and clients. From the abolition of the whites-only Democratic primary in 1944 until the national party reforms of the early 1970s, enclaves were battered and destroyed by a series of democratization pressures from inside and outside their borders. Drawing on archival research, Mickey traces how Deep South rulers--dissimilar in their internal conflict and political institutions--varied in their responses to these challenges. Ultimately, enclaves differed in their degree of violence, incorporation of African Americans, and reconciliation of Democrats with the national party. These diverse paths generated political and economic legacies that continue to reverberate today.
Focusing on enclave rulers, their governance challenges, and the monumental achievements of their adversaries,Paths Out of Dixieshows how the struggles of the recent past have reshaped the South and, in so doing, America's political development.
How do transitional democracies deal with officials who have been tainted by complicity with prior governments? Should they be excluded or should they be incorporated into the new system? ...InLustration and Transitional Justice, Roman David examines major institutional innovations that developed in Central Europe following the collapse of communist regimes. While the Czech Republic approved a lustration (vetting) law based on the traditional method of dismissals, Hungary and Poland devised alternative models that granted their tainted officials a second chance in exchange for truth. David classifies personnel systems as exclusive, inclusive, and reconciliatory; they are based on dismissal, exposure, and confession, respectively, and they represent three major classes of transitional justice.
David argues that in addition to their immediate purposes, personnel systems carry symbolic meanings that help explain their origin and shape their effects. In their effort to purify public life, personnel systems send different ideological messages that affect trust in government and the social standing of former adversaries. Exclusive systems may establish trust at the expense of reconciliation, while inclusive and reconciliatory systems may promote both trust and reconciliation.
In spite of its importance, the topic of inherited personnel has received only limited attention in research on transitional justice and democratization.Lustration and Transitional Justiceis the first attempt to fill this gap. Combining insights from cultural sociology and political psychology with the analysis of original experiments, historical surveys, parliamentary debates, and interviews, the book shows how perceptions of tainted personnel affected the origin of lustration systems and how dismissal, exposure, and confession affected trust in government, reconciliation, and collective memory.
An exemplary study in comparative contemporary history, this monograph looks at rural change in six countries: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. In the 1990s most of ...these nations experienced a fourth radical restructuring of agricultural relations in the twentieth century, and all went through the dramatic transition from communism to capitalism.
The nonviolent overthrow of Balkan dictator Slobodan Milošević in October 2000 is celebrated as democracy promotion at its best. This perceived political success has been used to justify an industry ...tasked with "exporting" democracy to countries like Belarus, Ukraine, Tunisia, and Egypt. Yet the true extent of the West's involvement in Milošević's overthrow remained unclear until now.Engineering Revolutionuses declassified CIA documents and personal interviews with diplomats, aid providers, and policymakers, as well as thousands of pages of internal NGO documents, to explore what proponents consider one of the greatest successes of the democracy promotion enterprise.
Through its in-depth examination of the two decades that preceded and followed Milošević's unseating, as well as its critical look at foreign assistance targeting Serbia's troubled political party landscape,Engineering Revolutionupends the conventional wisdom on the effectiveness of democracy promotion in Serbia. Marlene Spoerri demonstrates that democracy took root in Serbia in spite of, not because of, Western intervention-in fact, foreign intervention often hurt rather than helped Serbia's tenuous transition to democracy. As Western governments recalibrate their agendas in the wake of the Arab Spring, this timely book offers important lessons for the democracy promotion community as it sets its sights on the Middle East, former Soviet Union, and beyond.
Why have seemingly similar African countries developed very different forms of democratic party systems? Despite virtually ubiquitous conditions that are assumed to be challenging to democracy - low ...levels of economic development, high ethnic heterogeneity, and weak state capacity - nearly two dozen African countries have maintained democratic competition since the early 1990s. Yet the forms of party system competition vary greatly: from highly stable, nationally organized, well-institutionalized party systems to incredibly volatile, particularistic parties in systems with low institutionalization. To explain their divergent development, Rachel Beatty Riedl points to earlier authoritarian strategies to consolidate support and maintain power. The initial stages of democratic opening provide an opportunity for authoritarian incumbents to attempt to shape the rules of the new multiparty system in their own interests, but their power to do so depends on the extent of local support built up over time.
