Transitions to Democracy
The world circa 1960:
B
• 20-25 stable liberal democracies,
• some newly independent countries trying
liberal democracy
• 80-90 countries either under or tending
toward some form authoritarianism
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, 19691975General
– 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