Unstable Democracy Research Articles

Quick Fix Solutions-Anticorruption as Core/Peripheral Modality of the ‘Rule of Law’

Anticorruption has become the fulcrum of conditionalities for unstable democracies. In the EU, antigraft packages formed the common denominator of stabilization policies for Romania, Bulgaria, the Western Balkans, Moldova, and Ukraine. Union conditionalities trailed broader international trends and campaigns. The shift led to a crescendo of institutional innovations. Discursively, it generated a degree of conceptual overlap: anticorruption, for peripheral stabilization purposes, equates with the rule of law. I argue that the exclusive stress on anticorruption as a panacea for the (semi)periphery is fraught with perplexities. Paradoxically, in systems that can be reliably described as corrupt, the policy has a propensity to be derailed from its ostensible purposes. This danger results partly from categorial tensions between RoL normativity, on the one hand, and, on the other, the ethical purism and policy quantification inextricably linked with anticorruption. In the context of peripheral crusades, tendencies towards legal instrumentalism and populist emotionalism are exponentially higher than in stable jurisdictions. Consequently, unidirectional attempts to stabilize such systems by way of repressive anticorruption backfire. Likelier results are instability or forms of stability that might not correspond to central, received understandings of how a rule of law liberal-democratic system should operate. By the same token, in the integrated transnational constitutional system located at the intersection of EU and Council of Europe guarantees, “reverse conformities” tend to upset core tenets and representations of the rule of law. The paper argues that anticorruption policies, albeit eminently useful, should be fettered by rule of law constraints, not equated with the notion of the rule of law.

The Concept of ‘Militant Democracy’ in the Context of Russia’s Armed Aggression Against Ukraine

Background: The fall of a dictatorship is accompanied by a period of democratic transit, which necessitates the use of special measures to protect a young and, thus far, unstable democracy. This model’s use began in practice after the Second World War in connection with the spread of the doctrine of "democracy capable of defending itself," also known as militant democracy (English) or Wehrhafte (Streitbare) Demokratie (German). The flagship here was the German science of constitutional law, which formed the tools for the creation of a new legal system accounting for the mistakes of the Weimar Republic. This experience is especially relevant for Ukraine, as since 2014, it has faced external armed aggression by revanchist forces that took power from the heir of the Soviet empire, Russia, in which a totalitarian regime was established and became a full-fledged aggressor state. Methods: The following methods were used in the work to study the concept of militant democracy in the conditions of Russia's armed aggression against Ukraine. The system multi-structural method was utilized to discover the means of militant democracy in Ukraine (ban of political parties, lustration, etc.), as well as problems associated with the use of certain militant democracy means. The logical-legal method made it possible to identify the essence of the decisions of the constitutional, supreme, and other courts, the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, in which the means of militant democracy were used or the legality of their use was assessed (legality, constitutionality, or compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights). The comparative method justified the implementation of different countries’ experience (primarily, European) in reforming the constitutional and legislative regulation of the militant democracy in Ukraine and the mechanisms required for further action. Results and Conclusions: The work contains proposals for the constitutional and legislative improvement of the regulation of the means of militant democracy in Ukraine, which are based on the pre-existing experiences across the world and the use of already existing practices that have been successfully tested and achieved results.

Aung San Suu Kyi and ethnic cleansing: the dark side of ‘Myanmar way’ democracy

ABSTRACT After more than half a century of military rule in Myanmar, a democratic transition started in 2011. General Thein Sein established a civilian government from 2011 to 2016, and then in 2016 Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of the ‘father of the nation’, came to power. But Suu Kyi’s government had to share power with the military, as the constitution provided them vital privileges. Subsequently, following brutal actions against the Rohingya ethnoreligious group during Suu Kyi’s tenure, the international community accused her government of doing nothing to stop ethnic cleansing and genocide. This article examines why Aung San Suu Kyi, as leader of a fledgling democracy, failed to protect the Rohingya from ethnic cleansing. The arguments centre on the countrywide anti-Rohingya sentiment, Myanmar’s unstable democracy, Suu Kyi’s election process, the power imbalance between military and civilian governments and Suu Kyi’s policy tilt towards the military, and how these factors contributed to ethnic cleansing and genocide. Michael Mann’s theory on the ‘dark side’ of democracy, here applied to Myanmar’s democracy under Aung San Suu Kyi, examines how it connects with repression, ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Rohingya minority.

An Endless Endeavor: The Evolution and Challenges of Multi-Level Coastal Governance in the Global South

We used Brazil as a Global South case study to analyze the evolution of the coastal governance in a young and still unstable democracy. Based on twenty-five years of documentation related to a federal-level actor interaction hub named Coastal Management Integration Group (GIGERCO) we explored the opportunity context for the transformation of the Brazilian coastal governance system using a Theory of Transformative Agency to identify five periods of evolution. The coastal governance system shifted from an exploitation to a conservation phase (periods 1 to 3), where an increasing number of actors were getting to know the system and each other’s interests turned into a moment of higher stability and resistance to change. The mobilization of social capital and higher heterogeneity of actors allowed novel strategies to emerge, generating opportunities for structural changes from a conservation towards a release phase (period 4). We argue that the recent political changes in Brazil caused a rupture in such a flourishing coastal governance process (period 5), which is now at a critical juncture that may unfold into one of three envisioned alternative scenarios: conservative regime, a new integrated and ecosystem-based regime, or a remanent of past regime properties. Our paper informs coastal governance processes across the world, highlighting the dynamic nature of the interplay between alternative institutional entrepreneurship strategies, opportunity contexts, and innovations in governance systems.

How Elite Configurations Explain Shifts from Democracy to Authoritarian or Totalitarian Regimes: Turkey as a Case Study

Attempting to predicting the formation of particular types of governance structures has been one of the central tasks of sociologists and political scientists. John Higley and Michael Burton argued that the configuration of elite groups in a society is an important predictor of the governance structure that develops in that society. The Higley-Burton theory outlines several ways in which the configuration of elites can predict the transformation of governance structures, from authoritarian regimes to liberal democracies. In the current research, this previous theoretical work is extended by articulating a route by which societies can go the other way—from democracy to an authoritarian regime. Turkey is being used as a contemporary case study to show how shifts elite configurations in a democracy can lead to authoritarian regime. A five-step process for this transformation is outlined. The steps in this model for one route of moving from an unstable democracy towards autocracy or dictatorship can be summarized as follows: 1) Political success by one group or faction. 2) Establishment of an inner circle and consolidation of power. 3) Replacement of the inner circle with weaker members who can be controlled. 4) Self-isolation of the leader. 5) Government control of opposition and suppression of dissent.

A socially-critical curriculum for PETE: students’ perspectives on the approaches to social-justice education of one Brazilian programme

ABSTRACT Brazil is the largest and most influential country in South America with a population of about 211 million. The reality is a country with a wide gap between rich and poor. Many of its issues of (in)equity are related to a complex mix of factors, such as its large population, ethnic and cultural diversity, class and income disparity, late slavery abolishment, unstable democracy and political governance. At a national level, the former Brazilian government attempted to address the challenges outlined above by passing new legislation in 2007 that expanded the services and scope of the federal universities, particularly in respect to increasing access to tertiary education and providing increased support and infrastructure for people of middle- and low-income families. In this paper we analyse a PETE programme offered at one university in the Brazilian Northeast in response to changes introduced as a result of the 2007 legislation. Drawing on the perspectives of graduates from this programme, we examine how they see the complexity of social justice and equity issues from their experience in the course. Data were generated through focus group and individual interviews with former students. We supplemented this with document analysis of key policy and curriculum artifacts produced by the programme, and consultation with professors from the course to better understand the former students’ experiential dynamics. Each participant expressed a strong affinity for and orientation towards social justice as an integral aspect of school physical education. The curricular restructuring enables students to engage with a broad range of content underpinned by ethical, political, aesthetic, epistemological, pedagogical and theoretical-methodological principles. We consider that this curricular orientation seeks to meet the regional and local needs so that future physical education teachers, in turn, intervene with a more critical socio-cultural perspective in their teaching.

Israel’s unstable democracy in comparative perspective

ABSTRACT This article raises the question whether Israel is a stable or an unstable democracy. Its conclusion – based on a theoretical analysis that relates to variables such as the legitimacy of the regime, its effectiveness, the degree of general consensus it enjoys in society at large and amongst the elites, its party system and polarisation, its socioeconomic structure, the centrality of security issues, its constitutional structure and electoral system, and the international environment – is that it is unstable. The article’s approach is comparative and relates Israel to historical case studies, like post-World War I Weimar Germany, Italy, Britain and the US; post-World War II Germany, France, Italy, and Spain; the newly democratic states of Eastern Europe; and the Third World.

Legislative override and particularistic bills in unstable democracies: Ecuador in comparative perspective

ABSTRACT This article addresses, in a comparative perspective, the conditions under which legislatures find greater incentives to overcome a presidential veto. The authors’ framework points out that the legislative override is used selectively, essentially when the presidential veto is in particularistic bills, and in the context of unstable democracies. To test their theoretical argument the authors used an unpublished database on bills processed in Ecuador between 1979 and 2019. Though theories of veto bargaining predict the override success rates should be 50 per cent, the authors show that, similar to the US, in Ecuador the override success is relatively low. Although the effective number of political parties is a statistically significant variable too, the empirical findings are more consistent with the first hypothesis.

Political socialization in a failed democracy: Civic education in Thailand

In 1932 Thailand became a constitutional democracy with a traditional monarchy. Since then the country has experienced twelve ‘successful’ military coups d’ etat to make it one of the most coup prone nations in the world and an unstable democracy. This paper analyses an opportunity for schools in Thailand to contribute significantly to the political socialization of young Thais as a means to address the persistent failure of the country’s democratic procedures. Non-school factors, such as authoritarian family characteristics, may negate school attempts to instill democratic behavior. Although civic education in Thai schools appears to have largely failed, the Democratic Citizenship Education Curriculum Project, developed by, with and for Thais, provides schools and teachers with the opportunity to develop democratic citizens through the school socialization process.

The Impact of Civil Society on Governance in Lesotho

The article acknowledges that Lesotho governance has been characterised by unstable democracy since its attainment of independence in 1966, which makes civil society and other democratic institutions unable to pursue their roles as expected. The proposed solution to overcome predicaments that Lesotho faces was to have active and vibrant democratic institutions such as civil societies, ombudsman, political parties, independent media, independent electoral commissions and the legislative, executive and judiciary. The article aims to bridge the gap by examining published literature and documentary review, which clearly elucidate how good governance can be achieved in a democratic country with the help of active democratic institutions. The article highlights the importance of active and vibrant civil society in governance and public policy. The article concludes by justifying that in deed the government of Lesotho should accept and allow participation of civil society so as to be able to realise its contribution and the important role played by it. Also, civil society in Lesotho must distance themselves from suspicions that they are political parties in disguise.

Two faces of the same coin? A comparative, global approach to corruption and socioeconomic development

The present study investigates the economic, social and political dimensions of development worldwide focusing on the relationship between perceived corruption and income levels, human development, government effectiveness and quality of the political system. The empirical results of this study reveal that these aspects are partly correlated, and feedback relationships are important when assessing socioeconomic development in a comparative perspective. Specific combinations of these factors characterize stable clusters of countries with distinctive economic performances. Effective developmental strategies require measures aimed at boosting income, reducing corruption and stimulating human development and government effectiveness. Empirical results of our analysis also suggest that these strategies are sustainable in the long-run only when associated with institutional transformations, enhancing governance quality. With unstable democracy and ineffective government, socioeconomic development cannot be effectively achieved and maintained on a long-run basis, even under increasing levels of income and wealth. With corruption, wealth is a necessary but not sufficient condition for socioeconomic development.

Unstable Democracy: Collating the Various Editions of the Tocqueville’s Works.

Suponemos que un texto impreso goza de estabilidad. Sin embargo, esto no es asi. En el caso de la Democracia en America, el paso del manuscrito a la impresion introdujo ya errores, y las sucesivas ediciones, otros nuevos. Algunas de estas erratas se han perpetuado en las ediciones mas conocidas y traducidas. La identificacion de estos errores ayuda a restituir el texto original y a comprender mejor la obra.

Tutelage and Regime Survival in Regional Organizations' Democracy Protection

Why do states adopt binding and enforceable democracy clauses at the regional level, thereby permitting neighboring states to monitor and potentially sanction their breaches of democracy? To answer this question, the authors test a set of hypotheses in two South American intergovernmental regional organizations,MERCOSURandUNASUR. Following the epistemological and methodological requirements of process-tracing analysis, the authors conducted thirty-six interviews with top-level policymakers and decision makers who were responsible for the design and enforcement of the Protocol of Ushuaia (MERCOSUR), the Protocol of Montevideo (MERCOSUR), and the Protocol of Georgetown (UNASUR). The authors argue that actors formalize these provisions in response to threats to regime survival. Unlike international organizations for the protection of human rights, which rely on the delegation of power to institutions such as supra-state courts, democracy clauses are intergovernmental instruments whose enforcement relies on states’ capabilities. Because of this, the perceptions of governments regarding their own stability and their expectations regarding the future enforcement of the clauses against their own country are causally linked to the decision to support the adoption of the clauses. Thus, governments that perceive themselves as stable democracies or expect that they are too big to be sanctioned support the adoption of democracy clauses because these clauses are functional for others. Conversely, governments that perceive themselves as unstable democracies support the adoption of democracy clauses as functional for themselves. The authors contend that any such asymmetry of self-perceptions and expectations, together with regime protection, explain the move toward the formalization of clauses for the protection of democracy in member states withinMERCOSURandUNASUR.

The Generals in Their Labyrinth

The Generals in Their Labyrinth

Menilai Ulang Gagasan Negara Khilâfah Abû Al-A’lâ Al-Maudûdî

In the midst of unstable democracy system, the idea about Islamic state or khilâfah, referring to some Muslim thinkers’ views, begins to get fresh wind. This writing presents al-Maududi’s view on Islamic state and khilâfah system centered in theo-democracy that is still unclear how to be implemented in the real practice especially in our situation now. Substantially, his basic ideas are acceptable, for example his thought of goals and functions of state establishment. However, his view that only men are eligible to be ‘amîr is difficult to accept for public today. Al-Maududi is one of Muslim scholars who is persevering in establishing an Islamic state based on al-Qur’an and Hadist. Basically, al-Maududi agrees any state form. However, he emphasizes the significance of theo-democracy state model as a characteristic of an Islamic state that is different from republic system that applies democracy in the West.

Contemporary Challenges of Democratisation and Development in Africa

The end of the cold war and the triumph of liberalism after the collapse of the Soviet Union had a reverberating effect on the wave of democratisation that swept through most parts of the developing world, including Africa. In spite of the euphoria of the third wave of democratisation, the economic condition in Africa looks grim. Africa’s traditional importance as a supplier of raw materials has diminished with competition from synthetic substitute and suppliers in Asia, Latin America and the former Soviet Republics. Also, in the current wave of massive capital movements to the ‘emerging markets’, Africa remains marginal. The paper argues that while democracy is usually seen as a ‘harbinger of development’, it is also recognised that the enthronement of democracy becomes more improbable in a harsh economic environment. This is to say that while democracy enhances development, it is in itself distressed by acute poverty, which threatens the very survival of individuals. While transitions towards democracy do not guarantee rapid economic development and improved human right situations, democracy should however create a window of opportunity where groups struggling for development and human rights would have better possibilities than before for realising their demands. Concluding, any efforts by Western donor countries or the IMF and the World Bank to impose political conditionality to encourage democratisation in Africa will result in mere window dressing. There is also the possibility of unstable democracies arising from a conflict between those who want to complete the democratisation process and those who want to halt it for failing to deliver the much-desired goods. The paper is a review of dynamism of contemporary democratic movements amidst different challenges in Africa. It is undertaken exploring different perspectives through desk review, theoretical interrogations and analysis of relevant data.

Endogenous Parliamentarism

What are the factors driving the choice of the form of government? So far, it has been argued that higher income inequality makes a parliamentarian system less likely. Using a rational-choice model and focusing on a set of assumptions that fits well with unstable democracies, this paper finds that the composition of the constitutional assembly does play a key role for the choice of form of government. Who holds the majority in the constitutional assembly has a strong effect on the choice of form of government, especially when the policy conflict within the society (measured by income inequality in the model presented here) is high. This finding supports the case for a stronger focus on institutional details.

Do social networks bridge political divides? The analysis of VKontakte social network communication in Ukraine

New electronic forms of political communication have become increasingly popular in countries with weak democratic institutions. The effectiveness of these new forms of association in altering political behavior, however, remains uncertain even in developed democratic regimes. This paper investigates connections between regional variation in electoral behavior and regional distribution of electronic social networks in the case of Ukraine's polarized and institutionally unstable democracy. Our analysis of online networks shows that, somewhat contrary to conventional wisdom, electronic communication does not bridge political divides. This finding casts doubt on the effectiveness of online forms of political communication as a source of behavioral change.

Free Trade Agreements and the Consolidation of Democracy

We study the relationship between participation in free trade agreements (FTAs) and the sustainability of democracy. Our model shows that FTAs can critically reduce the incentive of authoritarian groups to seek power by destroying protectionist rents, thus making democracies last longer. This gives governments in unstable democracies an extra motive to form FTAs. Hence, greater democratic instability induces governments to boost their FTA commitments. In a dataset with 116 countries over 1960–2007, we find robust support for these predictions. They help to rationalize the rapid simultaneous growth of regionalism and of worldwide democratization since the late 1980s. (JEL D72, F13, F15, O19, O24)

Nepal's unknown data privacy law: No Shangri La, but a first for South Asia

Data privacy laws sometimes take root in unlikely locations. Nepal, one of the poorest countries in the world, has an unstable parliamentary democracy with coalitions led by various Marxist parties. Nepal has very limited privacy protections in relation to the private sector, and does not have a large non-agricultural private sector as yet. But in relation to public bodies its right to information (RTI) law, while primarily concerned with ‘freedom of information’ (FOI) issues, has numerous unusual and potentially important data privacy protections. This article analyses these protections, their scope, and (to the extent possible) their application, and argues that they amount to a ‘data privacy law’ for Nepal’s public sector. Nepal is the first country in South Asia to have such a law.