Third Wave Of Democratization Research Articles

The global development of value orientations, political support and democracy since the 1990s

This article analyzes the global development of democracy since the 1990s. The theoretical introduction is followed by a descriptive analysis of several indices of political support based on survey results for 89 countries that participated at least twice in the World Values Survey (WVS) or the European Values Study (EVS). The analysis focuses on emancipative value orientations measured by Welzel's Choice Index and several indicators of political support. The scores of these indicators are broken down by five regime types and seven world regions. The results confirm that the global decline of democratic quality since the mid-2000s has not been as dramatic as the pessimistic analyses of Freedom House and the V-Dem project have claimed. It has primarily taken place in a limited number of populous countries on which these publications have focused. When countries are treated equally, the quality of democracy has remained remarkably stable since the early 1990s. Emancipative values are globally on the rise, but their increase has been considerably higher in the established democracies. This supports the skeptical argument that they cannot be considered as the major cause of the third wave of democratization. The descriptive analysis is complemented by regression analyses for confidence in regime institutions and support for democracy as dependent variables. The evaluation of democratic regime performance is the strongest predictor of confidence in regime institutions. An intrinsic conception of democracy and the importance assigned to living in a democracy have the strongest influence on support for democracy. Emancipative value orientations have a minor influence on political support even in consolidated democracies. Finally, the analysis does not confirm the suspected relationship between the different levels of political support. Easton's theory of political support assumed that they mutually influence each other via a generalization of experiences or an overflow of values. Instead, it seems that confidence in regime institutions and support for democracy follow different cognitive logics.

A ‘flawless’ constitutional engineering project in Turkey: regime transformation through constitutional amendments of 2007, 2010, and 2017

ABSTRACT A functional legislature is very vital for democratisation. During the time of democratic consolidation, parliament changes from its primary roles of oversight, representation and legislation into ‘important public arenas of partisan dispute, of encounters with social topics, of negotiations and of important decision-making’. Populist leaders in parliamentary systems like Turkey recently either led to sui generis presidential systems or transformed them into illiberal democracies by expanding the executive branch's power to amend the constitution, which contradicts the favourable conditions of the third wave of democratisation at the turn of the twenty-first century. By streamlining legislative processes, the Turkish Constitution of 1982 envisaged an empowered executive that would subordinate the parliament. The three constitutional modifications passed after 2007 resulted in de-democratisation, de-parliamentarisation and eventually, a regime change from democratic consolidation to autocracy. The parliamentary debates on these constitutional amendments, which included popular presidential election, judicial reform and the so-called 'Turkish style' presidential governance system, failed to reach a consensus and were marked by an adversarial rather than deliberative approach. Have constitutional reforms made in the name of re-democratisation resulted in de-democratisation, with the legislature entirely crippled, the judiciary reliant and the executive exercising sole authority? This study aims to analyse the impact of three consequential constitutional amendments on democratic backsliding in Turkey, with special reference to the decline of parliament. Parliamentary minutes on the relevant constitutional amendments, procedural changes disabling the parliament from performing its legislative and oversight functions and the actual outcomes of these amendments in terms of executive-legislative relations will be discussed. In conclusion, potentials for strengthening parliament, checks and balances, and re-democratisation will be presented.

Electoral Politics and Struggles for Accountability

This review essay focuses on electoral politics and the African accountability struggle, which has gained interest and scholarly attention following the third wave of democratization. Before the Namibia Constituent Assembly elections in November 1989, many would agree that elections were neither acknowledged nor considered appropriate for selecting governmental and national leaders. However, the democratic wave in the early 1990s marked a substantial political shift in Africa. Elections, once rare, are now frequent, serving as a crucial tool for both development and accountability. In this new era, citizens have a rare opportunity to hold their leaders accountable and exert control over their behavior. This review specifically addresses two volumes: Electoral Politics and Africa’s Urban Transition: Class and Ethnicity in Ghana by Noah L. Nathan and Elites and the Politics of Accountability in Africa, edited by Wale Adebanwi and Rogers Orock. Specifically, these volumes delve into topics concerning electoral politics and Africa’s challenges in achieving accountability.

It’s my party and I’ll lie if I want to: Elite ideological obfuscation in post-authoritarian settings

This paper examines the origins and evolution of the direita envergonhada (“embarrassed right”) phenomenon, a pattern of ideological obfuscation by right-of-center politicians that was originally identified and documented in post-authoritarian Brazil. Conservative politicians refused to identify themselves as right-wing, defining themselves instead as centrists and placing themselves ideologically to the left of their own political parties. We find that this phenomenon is not restricted to Brazil, but is widespread across Latin America’s Third Wave of democratization. We also find that politicians personally connected to the defunct authoritarian regime were more likely to engage in obfuscation and that, contrary to previous hypotheses, obfuscation has faded in recent times.

Researching China’s Development and Globalization in an Era of US-China Tensions

The role that China is perceived to present for the global economy—much less global security—has changed remarkably since China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in December 2001. During the height of neoliberalism and third-wave democracies, China appeared more open to foreign capital than the developmental states of East Asia, which had restricted foreign direct investment (FDI) in favor of domestic industrialization during a comparable stage of economic development. Through the first 15 years of China’s WTO membership, many in academia and the policy world depicted a modernizing China undergoing market transition, in parallel to Eastern European countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Exploring the Impact of Semi-Presidentialism on Third-Wave Democratizing Countries

Many nations have started down the path of democratization under the impact of the third-wave of democratization. After the completion of democracies, their consolidation has become an urgent issue for these emerging democracies. The study of democratic consolidation in third-wave democracies is one of the popular topics of comparative political science research, in which the difference in the form of government organization is an important indicator for assessing the stability of democracies in third-wave democratizing countries. Some scholars have proposed the conditions for democratic consolidation in emerging democracies by studying the structural factors of society (level of economic development, spread of democratic concepts, and demonstration effects in neighboring countries). However, there is a lack of consistency in the understanding of how the type of governance affects the consolidation of democracy. A look at the forms of government chosen by emerging democracies reveals that many countries have mostly adopted semi-presidential institutional arrangements. As a result, using a literature review methodology and theoretical analysis, this study examines the effects of implementing semi-presidentialism on polity stability and the capacity of the government to govern successfully in emerging democracies. The study concludes that semi-presidentialism have more adverse than beneficial effects on democratic consolidation in emerging democracies.

Religious Institutions’ Stances towards Autocratization in the Post-Third Wave Period

AbstractWhile scholars have devoted significant attention to religious institutions’ role in democratization, less attention has been given to their role in autocratization. Moreover, religious economy approaches suggest that religious institutions are flexible to offer whatever is of interest to the marketplace, but here the role the institutions played in the third wave of democratization suggests a stable commitment. I test the impact of religious monopoly and the historical pro-democratizing role on 52 dominant religious institutions’ stances towards autocratic practices related to regime survival in the post-third wave period. Logistic regression models reveal that stronger religious monopolies decrease the probability of opposing regime survival, while the historical pro-democratizing role of the dominant religious groups in the third wave increases the probability. Furthermore, when the religious market is highly monopolized, the commitment to a democratic role in the third wave is weak, and it is strengthened when there is intense religious competition.

“We Are Flying Like a Fish”: Female Academics in Social Work in Hungary

Social 1 work was reintroduced to Hungary during the third wave of democratization in Europe. As an academic discipline, it is in a disadvantaged position: the domestic academic traditions prefer strict disciplinary boundaries to inter- or transdisciplinary integration. Ongoing reforms in the country highlight the economic gains and the societal mission of higher education, with a strong focus on internationalization and direct connections to professional practice. Unfortunately, in this new framework, social work is understood as an auxiliary profession. This, in combination with female academics’ unfavorable position in Hungary, establishes a situation in which gender-based and disciplinary disadvantages result in a negative synergy. To explore the potential impacts, we maintain a dual focus throughout the paper and analyze academic women's position and the position of academics in social work.

Democracy's Surprising Resilience

Abstract: Against widespread perceptions, the authors argue that democracy has proven remarkably resilient in the twenty-first century. Fears of a "reverse wave" or a global "authoritarian resurgence" have yet to be borne out. The vast majority of "third wave" democracies—those that adopted democratic institutions between 1975 and 2000—have long outlived the favorable global conditions that enabled their creation. The authors attribute the resilience of third-wave democracies after the demise of the liberal West's post–Cold War hegemony to economic development and urbanization, and also to the difficulty of consolidating and sustaining an emergent authoritarian regime under competitive political conditions.

The Institutional Foundations of the Uneven Global Spread of Constitutional Courts

Since the third wave of democratization, specialized constitutional courts have spread widely across developed and developing countries and become key to government accountability, rights protection, and cross-institutional conflict resolution. Simultaneously, nearly half of all constitutional court adoptions have occurred in Europe. What explains the global, yet Eurocentric, spread of constitutional courts? Countries’ institutional endowments, particularly domestic and international legal institutions, are key to this crucial choice of constitutional design. Common law countries are less likely to establish specialized constitutional courts than their civil law counterparts due to their domestic legal system’s relatively weaker affinity with the constitutional court model. Furthermore, the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission—the main international organization specifically promoting constitutional courts—has catalyzed their wide and rapid spread especially, but not exclusively, in Europe. Our theory gains robust support from event history analyses of 172 developed and developing countries from 1947 to 2019.

‘Debris’ of Coups D’état: Electoral Democracy, Election Violence, Political Vigilantism, and Elections Securitizations in Africa

Recent warm reception to military takeovers and mongering for coups d’état by citizens in some African nations due primarily to the disillusionment that has accompanied the promise that democracy in a globalized world will lead to prosperity and improve standards of living coupled with the myriad of social, economic, security and political challenges have become of great concerns to scholars, social scientists, advocates, and observers of African democracy. Three decades since the publication of Huntington’s famous work, Democracy’s Third Wave and Prezeworski’s recent book “Crisis in Democracy”, political observers of Africa’s democratic transitions and consolidation are questioning whether recent successful coups and attempts since 2010 in countries such as Mali, Burkina, Faso, Niger, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Madagascar, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Central African Republic, Chad, Egypt, Gabon, Sudan amongst others raise serious questions about the future of African democracy. The numerous and successful military takeovers across the continent particularly in the West African sub-region raise a myriad of questions as to the direction of African democratic transition and consolidation. These causing many scholars, political analysts, academics, democratic advocates and experts on military takeovers/coup to begin to analyze whether recent happenings on the continent can be characterized as “debris” of coups d’état in the post-independence-democratic transitional era or a reversal of the Third Wave of democracy on the continent. Building upon earlier analytical work on military coups this paper explores the concept of securitization of elections through the recruitment and prioritized treatment of political vigilante groups into the regular and specialized security agencies) as long terms risks for “debris” of coup d’états by adopting elections as a “minimalist” or “electoralist” definition of democracy.

Autonomous and Between Worlds: Musical Manifestos for Anti-Capitalist Futures in Post-Wall East Berlin

AbstractThe opening of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 provided a spectacular climax for Samuel Huntington's third wave of democracy. It represented the triumph not only of a people over their oppressive regime but also, ultimately, of Western economic liberalism; the post-socialist democracy of German reunification was a singular one with consumerism at its core. In the early 1990s, many East German reform socialists resisted this inevitability, and exploited the temporary political and bureaucratic void that emerged in East Berlin as a space in which to imagine alternative democratic futures from the socialist past. In this article I explore the attempts by two very different East Berlin musical communities to incubate anti-capitalist worlds from the legacies – both official and unofficial – of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). First, I reflect on the autonomous musical worlds that were created by members of the GDR's alternative bands in occupied buildings in Prenzlauer Berg and Mitte. Second, I consider the articulation by the ZwischenWelt-Festival, a reincarnation of the GDR's Festival of Political Song, of a more outward-looking future for East Germany, based on the ideals of international solidarity.

Politički sistem Rusije - između demokratije i autoritarnosti

The main research objective of this article was to assess the nature of the democratization of Russia's political system in the period 1985-2000. The authors analyze the selected period of the transformation in Russia based on the concept of S. Huntington, considered the most adequate theory of democratization. The authors attempted to answer following questions: what changes occurred during the "Perestroika" process initiated by M. Gorbachev - unsuccessful liberalization for Soviet Russia and "started" the Third wave of democratization of the Russian Federation; secondly, what was the specificity of the democratization of the political system during the presidency of Boris Yeltsin; and lastly, when the retreat from democratization began in Russia. This analysis seems quite sensible due to the fact that it can explain the reasons for the retreat from democracy during the presidency of V. Putin and the construction of an authoritarian state in Russia in the 21st century. In order to verify the hypotheses and answer the research questions, the classic method for the social sciences was chosen (the decision-making, systemic, and case study methods).

The role of the European Union and democratisation process in post-communist Romania

The fall of Communism in the Central and Eastern European countries in the year 1989, was a historical change had occurred after the demise of communism. The decline of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 was one of the most important proceedings of the period: the conclusive end of the Cold War and the Iron Curtain. After the disintegration of the former USSR, the Eastern bloc had started the modernisation of institutions and adopted the norms of democracy. The third wave of democratisation of Samuel P. Huntington’s theory would apply the democratic changes in Central and Eastern Europe and Romania as well. It traces the discussions and opinions of institutional and political development in Romania with special attention to the events around 1989 Post-communism and Eastern enlargement of the European Union. The paper assesses the role of the European Union to promote democratization through Eastern neighbour policy. The paper broadly discusses the institutional and political development in Romania and the role of Copenhagen criteria and the country’s accession to the EU in early 2007. The result of this article is that Romania has successfully integrated into the European Union but that democratization is declining in the country.

Опыт демократии и экономический рост в странах третьей волны демократизации

In this paper, we study the effect of democracy on economic growth. We provide an overview of theoretical models analyzing the relationship between political regime and economic growth, and characterize the existing empirical results. Theoretical considerations suggest that it is accumulated and not instantaneous level of democracy that affects economic development. In order to capture this idea, we introduce the notion of democratic capital. We estimate the impact of democratic capital on GDP per worker growth rates in a dynamic panel data model from 1990 to 2019 in a sample of 70 countries that have recently transitioned to democracy. Our GMM estimates show that for countries of the third wave of democratization it's capital of democracy has a robustly positive impact on economic growth. The effect of democratic capital is most pronounced in Europe and Latin America, which can be explained by the prevalence of democracy in neighboring countries. Furthermore, the effect of democratic capital is most pronounced in partial democracies than in full or failed democracies, which can be explained by the trade-off between the governmental rent-seeking and public desire for redistribution.

The state of democracy in Africa

Many African states experienced democratic transition following the third wave of democratization that spread across the region in the 1990s. Such democratic states became characterized by multiparty elections, tolerance for opposition tolerance, media freedom, protection of human rights and respect for the rule of law. However, recent trends show that democratic growth has stalled while its gains are short-lived in many states. This is evidenced in the rise in third termism, constitutional coups, military coups and digital authoritarianism that plagues the continent – suggesting a wave of democratic relapse and autocracy. One is therefore poised to ask what the state of democracy in Africa is and what trends and practices have led to a general decline in levels of democracy. To this end, this paper assesses the incidence of democratic recession in Africa by adopting a descriptive and analytical approach that relies on secondary data sourced from peer-reviewed journal articles, reports, briefs and internet sources. It was found that the decline in democratization, otherwise democratic relapse heralds an epoch of democratic instability and entrenched autocracy in the continent. This is not unconnected with the spate of bad governance, violent electoral contestation, digital repression and widespread violation of human rights that is prevalent on the continent. It was therefore recommended that priority be given to good governance, the strengthening of state institutions and tolerance for opposition.

Patterns of democratic backsliding in third-wave democracies: a sequence analysis perspective

ABSTRACT Democracy has come under pressure worldwide, with growing concern over an apparent reverse wave of democratic backsliding at the global level. Bridging conceptual approaches and empirical research, this article investigates patterns of democratic backsliding in third-wave democracies. It applies a range of innovative sequence analysis techniques to the Varieties of Democracy dataset to provide a dynamic perspective on the evolution of different types of democratic safeguards against executive expansion. The resulting typology differentiates stable trajectories from different patterns of backsliding and sheds light on the diversity of backsliding processes that diverge in their shape, depth, and timing in respect to initial democratic transition. The findings contribute to broader debates on the nature of democratic backsliding and have important implications both for our theoretical understanding of the phenomenon and the practical responses devised to counter backsliding trends.

Hibrid rezsimek és a szürke zóna: új válaszok a politikai rezsimek rendszertanának örök kérdéseire

Contrary to widely held expectations, the third wave of democratization has brought about notonly democracy but also the emergence of many regimes of whichtraditional democratic theorycannot make sense. The overwhelmingly dichotomous, teleological, and minimalist approachesfail to adequately describe political regimes in the grey zone between outright autocracy andfull-fledged democracy. In our essay, we discuss the theoretical approaches that aim to graspwhat has been increasingly called hybrid regimes, namely political regimes that combineautoritharian and democratic elements. We point to the theoretical and empirical limitationsof these efforts and argue that the concept of hybrid regimes is still inextricably linked with theconcept of liberal democracy. Nevertheless, even if the existing approaches to hybrid regimessuffer from a series of shortcomings, by providing fine-grained and more realistic descriptions of regime transformations, they make an important contribution to the literature on politicalregimes.

Autocratisation, electoral politics and the limits of incumbency in African democracies

ABSTRACT The world is experiencing a new wave of autocratisation, characterised by a global democratic reversal. From 2010 to 2020, the share of the world population living in autocracies increased from 48 to 68%. Electoral autocracies are now the world's most common regime type, and along with closed autocracies they number 87 of the world's 195 states. Even during the height of the third wave of democratisation, elections in Africa rarely led to an alternation of power. Thirty years after the third wave, this special issue introduction takes stock of how many transfers of power occurred in the three crucial decades between 1991 and 2021. In this special issue, we focus on Zambia to understand some of the factors that contributed to an electoral turnover, notwithstanding the many benefits of incumbency that were enjoyed by the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) led by President Edgar Lungu. We show that the outcome of Zambia's August 2021 election demonstrates the limits of incumbency. We suggest that voters and opposition parties in countries with previous experiences of peaceful transfers of power might rely on a ‘democratic muscle-memory’, to dislodge autocrats and call for more research on when and why incumbents lose.

Democratic Breakdown through Lawfare by Constitutional Courts: The Case of Post-"Democratic Transition" Thailand

Third-wave democracies have massively adopted mechanisms of judicial review, notably constitutional courts, considered key institutions of successful democratic transitions. By preventing abuses of the constitution and safeguarding people's rights, they act as a bulwark against the claims of potential autocrats. In Thailand, the 1997 democratic transition led to the adoption of a powerful constitutional court tasked with safeguarding democracy from the threats of populism, corruption, and authoritarianism. Yet since its inception, the court's record has been puzzling. It has dissolved most, if not all, of the pro-democracy, anti-military political parties, dismissed all elected prime ministers, and paved the way for two military coups. In short, against established theories linking constitutional courts to democratization, the introduction of constitutional review in Thailand has led to democratic breakdown. To make sense of this puzzle, this article will investigate three variables of the court—strategic interests, ideologies, and institutional design—within the larger bureaucratic structure of the Thai state, to account for the anti-democratic behaviour of Thailand's Constitutional Court. This piece considers materials in Thai and English.