Democratization
Lipset, 1959
• What is Democracy?
• For Europe/U.S. • For S. America -
• What Correlates w/ Democratization?
• Increased Wealth, Urbanization, Literacy, and Industrialization
• What are the proposed mechanisms?
• Social Mobilization
• Emergence of bourgeoise
Boix, 2003
• What is Democracy?
• (1) Free multiparty elections; (2) Executive is elected by the population and is
responsible to them; (3) at least 50% of adult men can vote (p. 66).
• What Correlates w/ Democractization?
• High Capital Mobility
• High Economic Equality
• What are the Proposed Mechanisms?
• Democratization occurs when democracy becomes cheaper than
authoritarianism and leaders are no longer motivated to block the
redistribution of wealth via democracy.
Acemoglu and Robinson, 2006
• What is Democracy?
• “A country is a democratic if a certain political process takes place – if certain
key institutions, such as free and fair elections and free entry into politics, are
in place” (p. 17-18).
• What Correlates w/ Democratization?
• Democracy occurs when civil society is mobilized, when economic/political
crises occur, when elites are industrialists, when institutions are built to limit
damage to elites, when a middle level of inequality is present, when a middle
class is present and when trade integration has occurred.
• What are the Proposed Mechanisms?
• Democratization occurs when elites are unwilling to oppose it because their
place in society is not threatened
Linz and Stepan, 1996
• What does a consolidated Democracy look like?
• Linz and Stepan define what a consolidated democracy looks like behaviorally,
attitudinally, and constitutionally (p. 6). Essentially, democracy is consolidated
when it becomes “the only game in town.”
• They identify 5 major arenas that exist in a consolidated democracy
(summarized in a table on p.14):
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civil society
political society
rule of law
state apparatus
economic society
Caraway, 2004
• Who counts in studies of democratization? And who is left out?
• Many studies only incorporate white male suffrage in their analysis of
democratization. Inclusion of women and racial minorities are often ignored
outside of “outlier” cases.
• Why is this a problem?
• “Any move to include an excluded group is a form of democratization” (p.454)
• “Such a simplistic view overlooks the extent to which class, gender, and race
are mutually constructed and interact in concrete historical circumstances.”
(p.457)
Paxton, 2000
• Who counts in studies of democratization?
• Most conceptual definitions of democracy include women while many
operationalized definitions exclude them.
• Why is this a problem?
• Including women changes the dates of democratic transitions. This changes
“our perception of the emergence of democracy” (p.105).
• What can be done to fix this gap?
• Paxton recommends the development of graded measures instead of
dichotomous measures when researching democratization and democracy.
Morgenbesser, 2018
• Why does authoritarian regime type matter for democratization?
• Scholars have argued that certain types of regimes are more likely to
democratize than others.
• Understanding authoritarian regimes and tracking their transitions is the goal
of many projects, such as the polity project and varieties of democracy
• How can we prevent misclassification of regimes?
• Misclassification can be reduced by utilizing area/state experts.
Discussion Questions
• Caraway notes that more recent democratizers did not limit suffrage
based on race, but some countries have limited citizenship based on
race (Japan). Is limiting citizenship a way of limiting suffrage?
• Will transitions to democracy be explained by the same factors today
as they were in the past?
• Does democratic political culture precede the consolidation of
democracy or is it a result of democratic consolidation?
• Is democracy better understood as a result of the proper combination
of structural and/or institutional features, or is it a byproduct of
agents acting to produce democracy?