International Dimensions Of Democratization Research Articles

Arab Youth and the Quest for Democracy

Arab Youth and the Quest for Democracy Fadi Farasin (bio) and Cihat Battaloglu (bio) Introduction The Arab world appeared immune to the different waves of democratization that swept many parts of the globe, which led to the notion of "Arab exceptionalism." Internal and external pressures were exerted on Arab regimes to democratize; however, Arab regimes exhibited remarkable ability in maintaining their autocratic rule. Arab regimes sufficed by implementing superficial and narrow political reforms with a top-down approach; as a result, the Arab world did not make the transition to democratic rule. No state made significant, un-retracted "steps toward freedoms."1 The Arab people in general and youth2 in particular become disillusioned. Socioeconomic and political exclusion along with the absence [End Page 19] of conduits to implement change, drove the Arab youth to the streets and the Arab Spring ensued.3 The Arab Spring started in Tunisia and resulted in the dismissal of a long-time autocrat, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, in early 2011. Egypt and Libya soon followed in the footsteps of Tunisia. During this time, the Arab world was optimistic that democracy would spread. However, time proved that this optimism was misplaced. According to the 2016 Arab Public Opinion Survey, 55 percent of the respondents had negative views of their home countries' political situations.4 The nature of this alienation is the same before the Arab Spring and after it. Before the Arab Spring, most of the youth in the Arab streets would voice their discontent with the policies of their governments and demand freedom, dignity, better governance, accountability and a greater say in politics. A minority went or was driven down the path of radicalization.5 After the tragic events and bloodshed during and after the Arab Spring, which were inflicted by terrorist organizations such as Daesh and power-hungry regimes, a portion of those youth who were calling for political reform and democracy abandoned their demands, prioritizing their security and safety instead.6 According to the 2016 Arab Youth Survey, more than half of youth surveyed agreed with the statement: "Given the current circumstances in the Middle East, promoting stability in the region is more important than promoting democracy."7 The following sections in this article attempt to analyze the factors that drove the Arab youth to become alienated and caused them to challenge the status quo and demand political reform and democratization. It then explains how the tragic unfolding of events after the Arab Spring caused the Arab youth to abandon the quest for democracy and prioritize stability. Democratic Transition and the Role of Arab Youth The term democracy is predicated on the basic principles of contestation, [End Page 20] participation, accountability, and constitutional and institutional arrangements.8 Nevertheless, the reality of 'democratic transition' is far more complex and the drivers more diverse. The institutionalist approach argues that pro-democratic values can only emerge through learning by living under an existing democratic mechanism.9 This approach also highlights the importance of establishing robust democratic institution in a country to fulfil and consolidate democratic transition.10 However, Rustow11 adopts the elite-centered approach in its most radical version. He identifies elites as the main political actors in democratization. He believes that "democratic transition comes when political elites make the conscious decision to adopt the democratic rules of the game."12 In addition, the international dimension of democratization should not be ignored. As underlined by Huntington, the role of external actors became more influential during the different waves of democratization.13 In transitology, a vibrant, democratic, civil society is also considered a significant requisite of democratization. Bernhard argues that "democratization has only existed in conjunction with a civil society. It constitutes the sphere of autonomy from which political forces representing constellations of interests in society have contested state power. Civil society has been a necessary condition for the existence of representative government including democracy."14 In the democratization literature, civil society is seen as "a crucial arena for the development of other democratic attributes, such as tolerance, moderation, willingness to compromise, and a respect for opposing viewpoints."15 It is also highlighted as a key in the development and "teaching of civic virtue...

EU democracy projection in the Southern Mediterranean: A practice analysis

ABSTRACT This special issue expands on the existing literature on the international dimension of democratization by focusing on democracy projection, defined as the projection of (democratic) norms in the every-day practice of interactions, beyond any donor-recipient relationship, between states and foreign civil society actors on issue areas where both have interests to defend. The SI examines the issue areas of trade, anti-corruption, applied research, gender and LGBTI, focusing on EU practices in its everyday dealings with civil society in the Southern Mediterranean. The authors conclude, based on comparative case studies relying on extensive interviews, direct observations and content analysis, that democracy projection varies according to four main factors: EU’s perceived interest, its ideational commitment to norms of dialogue and inclusion, the degree of institutional inertia and discourses/structures of meanings dominating in some policy areas which preclude EU engagement on substance.

Democratization During the Third Wave

The initial optimism that greeted the onset of the “Third Wave” of democratization has cooled with the instability of many new democracies and the proliferation of stable competitive authoritarian regimes. These disappointments have produced a return to structural theories emphasizing the constraints posed by underdevelopment, resource endowments, inequality, and ethno-religious cleavages. We argue, however, for a sharper focus on the political mechanisms that link such factors to the emergence of democracy, including the extent of institutionalization in new democracies and the still understudied role of civil society and the capacity for collective action. The international dimensions of democratization also require closer analysis. We also underline a methodological point: The quest for an overarching theory of democracy and democratization may be misguided. Generalizations supported by cross-national statistical work yield numerous anomalies and indicate the need for approaches that emphasize combinations of causal factors, alternative pathways, and equifinality.

The international dimensions of democratization in Slovakia and Croatia

International influences were instrumental in the shaping of democratic outcomes in post-communist countries. The cases of Slovakia and Croatia demonstrate that international actors can play a transformative role during crucial moments in a country’s trajectory (or ‘critical junctures’) by de-legitimizing support for the authoritarian alternatives, shaping choices and resources available to elites, and building consensus on the democratic course at the elite and societal levels. Slovak and Croatian politics show the impact of external factors on the September 1998 and January 2000 parliamentary elections, respectively, that ended the legacy of a previous critical juncture and began a new path-dependent process.

The transnational protection regime and democratic breakthrough in Taiwan and South Korea

External state pressure is understood to have played a causally significant role in democratic breakthrough in Taiwan and South Korea during the 1980s. This article problematizes the international dimensions of democratization in Taiwan and South Korea by first providing a revisionist account of external agency which involved complex networks of transnational nonstate and substate actors. These included human rights activists, Christian churches and related ecumenical organizations, members of the Taiwanese and Korean diaspora communities in the US, academics and students, foreign journalists, and members of the US Congress. In forming a transnational “protection regime” during the 1970s and 1980s to protect the political opposition from repressive governments, they contributed to the development of effective democratic movements. The case studies provide us with a more comprehensive view of the international dimensions of democratization, speaking to both the country specific and general theoretical literatures on democratization at the same time.

Working with China to Promote Democracy

China represents an uncomfortable thorn in U.S. efforts to promote democracy around the world. While some projects have been successful, a large gap exists between the increasing U.S. funding in China and its “limited impact.” Moreover, U.S. democracy promotion in China has contributed to strategic distrust between China and the United States; Beijing perceives it as a strategic move to destabilize the rise of China and sabotage the Communist Party's leadership. At the same time, China's growing power while maintaining one-party rule and rejecting democratic change generates fear and distrust among many Americans. The scholarship on U.S. democracy promotion is largely and understandably dominated by U.S. scholars with U.S. perspectives. Chinese officials’ and scholars’ responses and perspectives are, however, often overlooked, particularly by democracy-promotion professionals, and are largely omitted from literature on the subject. This paper attempts to understand how the complex and multilayered U.S. democracy-promotion program in China has contributed to this strategic distrust. It examines China's responses to U.S. democracy promotion and explains the confrontational dynamic between Washington and Beijing. The paper also explores whether and how Beijing and Washington can create mutual trust rather than suspicions. Some skeptics may consider this naive, but on historical and political grounds it is actually a realistic possibility

International Influences on Elections in New Multiparty States

Practitioners and politicians have long debated the wisdom of pushing countries to hold elections, with some arguing for its necessity and others warning of its futility and even danger. Yet, research on how varying types of international activities affect the conduct and structure of elections still has a long way to go to be able to inform this debate. This article discusses the myriad international forms of engagement with elections and reviews the research on their ability to improve election quality. It also explores the more nefarious international activities, which are even less well understood than the efforts to improve elections. Given the mixed outcomes and findings, much work remains to be done, especially in specifying the conditions under which various effects occur. Such work has both practical and theoretical merits and can shed light on broader scholarly inquiries about the international dimensions of democratization.

Towards a theory of external democracy promotion

A few years ago, it was a common complaint that the international dimension of democratization and, in particular, the external promotion of democracy were largely neglected by scholars of comparative politics and international relations. By now, academic research has begun to catch up with the growth of foreign and development policies explicitly aiming at the international promotion and protection of democratic regimes. Yet, what is still a largely unexplored desideratum is the challenge to theoretically grasp ‘democracy promotion’ as an aim and strategy of democratic foreign policies – that is, to embed the empirical research on democracy promotion in theoretical perspectives on international relations. This article sets out to contribute to filling this gap by developing a classification of competing theoretical approaches. First, research on the democratic peace – the one major research program concerned with democratic foreign policy – is used to derive potential motives behind the promotion of democracy. Then, on this basis, existing theories of international relations are modified in order to locate democracy promotion within the foreign policy of democratic states. In conclusion, the article presents four sketches of potential theoretical approaches to the external promotion of democracy.

Democracy promotion before and after the ‘colour revolutions’

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes Tucker, ‘Post-Communist Colored Revolutions’, 536; see also Fairbanks, ‘Revolution Reconsidered’. Cevallos, ‘Whither the Bulldozer?’. Explicit comparisons of the influence of external actors in the various ‘colour revolutions’ are still rare, although some serious research on this has begun. For one contribution with a focus on the role of the US, see Chaulia, ‘Democratization, NGOs, and “colour revolutions”’. For an excellent discussion of the role of diffusion in these processes, see the reactions by various scholars to the July 2008 article by Lucan Way (‘The Real Causes of the Color Revolutions’) and in Journal of Democracy 20, no. 1 (2009): 69–97. See Ambrosio, ‘Insulating Russia’; Silitski, ‘Preempting Democracy’. See in particular O'Donnell and Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule. On this role see Pridham et al., Building Democracy?; Whitehead, ‘The International Dimensions of Democratization’. Michael McFaul has been perhaps most explicit about conditions which facilitate a ‘colour revolution’. He states: ‘The factors for success include (1) a semi-autocratic rather than fully autocratic regime; (2) an unpopular incumbent; (3) a united and organized opposition; (4) an ability quickly to drive home the point that voting results were falsified; (5) enough independent media to inform citizens about the falsified vote; (6) a political opposition capable of mobilizing tens of thousands or more demonstrators to protest electoral fraud; and (7) divisions among the regime's coercive forces.’ See McFaul, ‘Transitions from Postcommunism’, 7. With regard to conditions relevant to democratization, it is useful to point to the five interacting ‘arenas’ posited by Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan to be associated with democracy: the rule of law, economic society, political society, the state apparatus, and civil society. See Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition, 7–15. Burnell, ‘Democracy Assistance’, 9. See especially Carothers, Aiding Democracy Abroad. Börzel and Risse, ‘EU Policies’. Burnell, ‘Democracy Promotion’, 114. Emphasis in original. Schmitter and Brouwer, ‘Democracy Promotion and Protection’, 11. Carothers, ‘Fallacy’, 23. Diamond, ‘Advancing Democratic Governance’, 31. Carothers, ‘Fallacy’; see also Carothers, Aiding Democracy Abroad. Youngs, ‘What Has Europe Been Doing?’. Fukuyama and McFaul, ‘Should Democracy Be Promoted’, 36. Finkel et al., ‘The Effects of U.S. Foreign Assistance’. Crawford, ‘Promoting Democracy. Part I and II’. The remaining literature on evaluation processes is largely of a technical nature and takes the form of reports produced by governmental agencies and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Carothers, ‘The Backlash’; Gershman and Allen, ‘The Assault’; Silitski, ‘Preempting Democracy’. Carothers, ‘Fallacy’, 114. Ibid. Ambrosio, ‘Insulating Russia’. See e.g. Aslund and McFaul, Revolution in Orange, as well as the literature mentioned in endnotes 25–28. McFaul, ‘Transitions from Postcommunism’; Kuzio, ‘Democratic Breakthroughs’. McFaul, ‘Ukraine Imports Democracy’. Beissinger, ‘Modular Political Phenomena’; Bunce and Wolchik, ‘Electoral Revolutions’; Cheterian, ‘Georgia's Rose Revolution’. Laverty, ‘Colored Revolutions’; Tucker, ‘Post-Communist Colored Revolutions’. Way, ‘Real Causes’. Cevallos, ‘Whither the Bulldozer?’; Edmunds, ‘Continuity and Change in Serbia’; Ramet and Pavlaković, Serbia Since 1989. D'Anieri, ‘Ukrainian Politics’; Flikke, ‘Ukraine's Post-Orange Transition’; Katchanovski, ‘The Orange Evolution’; Motyl, ‘Reflections on Ukraine's Orange Revolution’. Jawad, ‘Democratic Consolidation in Georgia’; Mitchell, ‘Democracy in Georgia’.

The international dimension of democratization: testing the parsimonious approach

This article examines the importance of the international context on regime change. It provides evidence that geographic proximity to the European Union (EU) does not result in the spread of democracy. In contrast, communication and cooperation between EU actors and sub-national regions contributes significantly to the development of democracy in these regions. Considering the role of EU projects, investments and trade in regime transition—measured through indicators of civil society, political openness, freedom of speech and economic liberalization—this article demonstrates that international context may have a positive influence on the diffusion of democracy at a regional, sub-national level. This finding has substantial implications for the literature on international relations and globalization studies. It suggests that the emergence of ‘new’ regions through communication and cooperation takes place through two seemingly contradictory but mutually reinforcing processes: regionalization (territorial disintegration/federalization) and integration (through communication and cooperation).

Protest and Globalization: Media, Symbols and Audience in the Drama of Democratization

The complex processes of democratization involve interactions between global and local actors. Using the metaphor of the drama of democratization the paper considers one aspect of this interaction. The article analyzes the effect of interactions between the international dimension of democratization and protest movements. The account focuses on events at Kwangju during May 1980 and Beijing from April until June 1989. The case studies show that interactions between the international dimension of democratization and democratic protest movements can serve a democratizing function. This function is both contingent and transitory, and is played out within sections of the international audience.

The economic community of West African states, the defence of democracy in Sierra Leone and future prospects

The wave of democratization in the 1990s has brought considerable challenges and opportunities for post‐cold war Africa. One such challenge is the democratic intervention of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) under the aegis of the multilateral intervention force, ECOMOG, to restore a democratic government and constitutional order. The ECOWAS democratic intervention in the West African state of Sierra Leone can be located in a wider debate about international dimensions of democratization. In several respects, it also reflects the changing nature of international politics in the post‐cold war period particularly with regards to certain traditional norms of international society, namely non‐intervention and state sovereignty. The ECOWAS democratic efforts in Sierra Leone demonstrate that it is increasingly becoming acceptable for regional and international organisations to ‘defend’ democracy, albeit under the auspices of forcible as well as non‐forcible humanitarian intervention. However, these kinds of external intervention on behalf of democracy have in most cases led to its retrenchment. This article therefore critically assesses how the nature of domestic politics led to the suspension of democracy in Sierra Leone, the domestic and international implications of the ECOWAS defence of democracy there and the country's post‐conflict democratic prospects.

Laurence Whitehead (ed.), The International Dimensions of Democratization: Europe and the Americas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. xii+431, £35.00.

Laurence Whitehead (ed.), <i>The International Dimensions of Democratization: Europe and the Americas</i> (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. xii+431, £35.00.

The International Dimensions of Democratization

The International Dimensions of Democratization

The international dimensions of democratization: Europe and the Americas

The international dimensions of democratization: Europe and the Americas

The International dimensions of democratization: Europe and the Americas

The International dimensions of democratization: Europe and the Americas

The International Dimensions of Democratization: Europe and the Americas

I: COMPARATIVE 1. The International Dimensions of Democratization 2. The International Context, Political Conditionality, and the Consolidation of Neo-Democracies II: THE AMERICAS 3. The Imposition of Democracy: The Caribbean 4. The Effectiveness of US Human Rights Policy: 1976-1980 5. The Resurgence of US Political Development Assistance to Latin America in the 1980s 6. The International Support for the Chilean Opposition 1973-1979: Political Parties and the Role of Exiles 7. International Support for Democracy in Latin America: The Role of the Party Internationals 8. International Political Finance: The Konrad Adenauer Foundation and Latin America III: EUROPE 9. Democracy by Convergence: Southern Europe 10. International Aspects of Democratization: The Case of Spain 11. Underwriting Democracy: The European Community and Greece 12. Democracy and 'Decolonization': East Central Europe

Building democracy?: the international dimension of democratisation in Eastern Europe

The international dimension of democratization - theory, practice and inter-regional comparisons, Geoffrey Pridham east-central Europe in comparative perspective, Laurence Whitehead towards a culture of democracy? democratic theory and democratization in eastern and central Europe, N.J. Rengger international security and democratization in eastern Europe, Eric Herring the European Community and democracy in eastern Europe, John Pinder the USSR/CIS and democratization in eastern Europe, Margot Light the international dimension of democratization in Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, Judy Butt communism's weakest link - democratic capitalism's greatest challenge - Poland, George Sanford.

Building democracy? The international dimension of democratization in eastern Europe

Journal Article Building democracy? The international dimension of democratization in eastern Europe Get access Building democracy? The international dimension of democratization in eastern Europe. Edited by Geoffrey Pridham, Eric Herringand George Sanford. London: Leicester University Press. 1994. 224pp. £37.50. ISBN 0 7185 1459 9. Charles King Charles King 1New College, University of Oxford Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 71, Issue 1, January 1995, Page 180, https://doi.org/10.2307/2624077 Published: 01 January 1995