The multi-faceted role of religious actors in democratization processes: empirical evidence from five young democracies

Abstract

The article comparatively investigates the role of religious actors in the democratization processes of five ‘young’ democracies from the Catholic, Protestant, Christian-Orthodox and Muslim world: West Germany after World War II (1945–1969), Georgia and Ukraine post-1987/9, Mali (post-1987), and Indonesia from 1998. The analysis provides an overview of the roles religious actors played in the erosion of authoritarian rule, the transition to democracy and subsequent democratic consolidation processes, as well as de-democratization processes. Our three paired comparisons, including one in-country comparison, show that the condition which most affected the role of religious actors in all three phases of democratic transitions was the de facto autonomy they enjoyed vis-à-vis the political regime as well as the organizational form these actors took. Their aims, means, and the political significance of their theology were highly dependent on the extent to which they benefitted from de facto autonomy within the state.