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The paper proposed here aims at unraveling the effects of political institutions on public’s support for democracy. Many students of democratization have regarded public support for democracy as one of the quintessential elements leading a country to democratic consolidation. Countries without substantial level of public support for principles and practices of democratic politics has been degraded as merely “electoral” or “delegative” democracies even though they have competitive elections. Consolidated democracy can stand only on the culture in which ordinary citizens habitually believe in and behave according to the norms and rules of democracy. Some students of new institutionalism argue that certain institutions can encourage breeding higher levels of public support for democracy than others (Anderson and Guillory 1997; Norris 1999). Focusing upon how institutions make winners and losers, their analyses show that more inclusive and consensus oriented institutions are better to produce more democratic support than majoritarian institutions. It is a very interesting finding broadening topics and knowledge of institutional engineering. However, previous studies have several problems. (1) Their cases are usually limited in western and matured democracies. (2) More significantly, they do not consider the recent achievement of the studies of democratic support: Public support for democracy is multidimensional and multidirectional. (3) Measuring institutional variable is very limited and too simplified. In this paper, using World Value Survey data and other the most recent datasets, not only do we increase the number of cases significantly including old and new democracies, but also we compose new indicators measuring institutions: executive systems, electoral systems and levels of decentralization. More importantly, we conceptually divide public support for democracy into four dimensions: supports for democratic principles, performance of democracy, democratic institutions and personnel in democratic government. Following Lijphart works (Lijphart 1999), we believe consensus oriented institutions due to their nature of inclusiveness are better tools to raise public support. Unlike previous works, however, we hypothesize that not only do each institution make diverse influences on public support but also they are differently embodied in each dimension of democratic support. Our project will reveals more complicated patterns of institutional impacts on democratic support, which has been hidden in the previous studies. Ultimately, it will contribute to enrich current theory and knowledge of institutional designing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the evolution and characteristics of the Polish party system in the period 1991-2007, using the framework of institutionalization. Key moments in the development of the party system are identified by analyzing the results of six consecutive parliamentary elections. At the onset of the development of democratic politics, the party system was characterized by instability and under-institutionalization. By the end of the second decade, it displayed strong signs of structural stabilization and some evidence of the stability of interparty competition and party institutionalization, implying that the Polish party system is quasi-institutionalized. Moreover, the paper attempts to explain the results by focusing on elite behaviour and institutions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article tests the assumption in recent democratization literature that economic inequality declines after democratization. Existing research fail to address theoretical and methodological problems. The theoretical problem is the similar treatment of different levels of democracy. There is no reason to believe that the relationship between democratization and inequality is linear. This paper tests the relationship between different levels of democratization and inequality. It also addresses two methodological problems in previous studies: unobserved heterogeneity and missing data. By relying on cross sectional regressions, earlier studies produce biased results. I construct a panel analysis using and updated dataset and employ a fixed-effects model. Existing research employs list-wise deletion to deal with missing data. I use multiple imputations to eliminate bias and get more tractability from the data available. The finding of this paper is that the assumption in the democratization literature that upon transition to democracy the majority will benefit from greater income equality does not hold. This paper finds a non-monotonic relationship: low levels of democracy are associated with higher levels of income inequality. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spread of democracy around the world raises important theoretical questions. What affects the process of democratization? Some countries have started this process from similar experiences. They have broken with the authoritarian regime at the same time, and implemented the same type of reforms, but still, some are more successful than others. The answer to this question will allow officials to take better measures and implement better reforms to speed up the process of democratic consolidation. This paper investigates if corruption has a negative effect on the process of democratization. Corruption can slow down the process of democratic consolidation by creating economic inefficiencies, increasing income inequality, and perpetuating obstacles to participation and competition, thus diminishing the legitimacy of the political regime by negatively affecting people’s trust. Using a two stage least squared regression model, this paper controls for endogeneity in the relationship between corruption and democracy by using the level of tariffs in one country as an instrumental variable for corruption. The results are significant supporting the hypothesis that corruption negatively affects the level of democracy in one country. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper was to reflect and identify the agents of the demise of multiparty politics and democratization in Côte d'Ivoire between 1990 and 1999. Following a historical and paradigmatic approach, the paper articulated two points: 1) that multiparty politics and democratization caused political instability in Côte d'Ivoire and 2) that the political parties, political leadership, and masses failed to re-invent a new political consensual culture to deal with the post-1990 exigencies of multiparty politics. Taking the political behaviors, discourses, and ideologies that prevailed between 1990 and 1999 as variables of analysis, the paper concluded that the transformation of political institutions and structures was achieved without political actors committing to provide a political education that would empower the masses and erase the impact of ethnicity, corruption, and militarization. In fact, the paper concludes that the multiparty and democracy project failed in Côte d'Ivoire because of the prevalence of the one-party culture. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to lay the foundations for conceptualizing a normative conception of "the political" in a manner that is consistent with the prospects for the democratization of transnational organizations. In order for theories of transnational justice to establish themselves as critical theories concerned with issues of political justice, they must contain an explicit theory of the political. Without a coherent conception of the political that takes into account transnational relations, claims for political justice lodged on transnational levels cannot be adequately defended. This leaves theories of transnational justice open to criticism by statist theories that privilege a conception of the political that is bound to the sovereign nation-state alone. In this paper, I will argue for a concept of the political that is decoupled from the concept of the sovereign state. This does not mean to say that the sovereign state is not political, but that within the contemporary context, the sovereign state is no longer, if it ever was, the sole site of political struggle. Such a concept of the political would have normative implications for democrats. If the political exists with relation to transnational organizations, democrats must inquire into the condition and prospects for democratic politics beyond the frame of the nation-state. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much recent research demonstrates that the structural conflict between the propertied and the poor in non-communist authoritarian states affects the likelihood, timing, and outcome of democratization. In highly unequal societies, democratization has a strongly redistributive effect.The effect of transition in postcommunist democracies was quite different. Given the absence of private property in most means of production, the deliberate policies of wage compression, the widespread availability of income-support mechanisms, and the importance of collective consumption funds in such social goods and services as housing, healthcare, education, transportation, cultural goods and recreation, both income and consumption differentials were narrow compared with democratic capitalist societies at similar development levels. The transition, therefore, brought substantial increases in aggregate income inequality to the post-communist countries, with some post-communist countries reaching levels higher than those of some West European countries.Much political economy literature suggests that democratization is expected to make government more responsive to wider segments of society, more inclined to supply universal collective goods and services such as security of person and property, health care, education, and infra-structure, as well as to provide some minimum level of social insurance against the hazards of catastrophic income loss. These public goods and services should foster productive behavior on the part of economic agents, and thus growth, as well as the mitigation of extremes of poverty and inequality.However, collusion in rent-extraction by post-transition elites might be consistent with high rates of economic growth under some circumstances. If the elites take advantage of the new institutional environment of a post-communist state and capture control over productive assets for themselves, they might well use them to increase their own incomes, yielding rapid aggregate growth the benefits of which are concentrated in a narrow elite. The institutional advantages of democratization and property rights might be restricted to those holding monopolies over property, and not broadly shared. Their policies would lead to higher growth rates after an initial period of disorganization was overcome. But the benefits of the growth would be distributed unequally. An oligarchic democracy would complement an oligarchic form of capitalism. This paper examines the effects of the dual political and economic transition on income inequality trends, taking Russia's subnational regions (the subjects of the federation) as the units of observation. Noting that the regions differed widely both in their starting conditions and in the increase in income growth and differentiation as a consequence of the transition, it seeks to identify the political mechanisms that explain variation in income and inequality growth following the transition. Using both direct and instrumental measures of democracy by region, the paper finds evidence consistent with the "oligarchic democracy" model. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous work in post-Soviet states suggests support for democratic values legitimizes democratic institutions. This paper builds on this literature and links it with support for socioeconomic gender equality using survey data gathered in Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to fill an empirical void in the literature that treats the relationship between transition to democracy and economic growth. Most studies in this area examine the impact of a state?s level of democracy on its economic prospects. Few studies have addressed the impact of democratization itself on economic performance. We use an interrupted time series technique to study the link between democratization and economic growth in 22 countries that experienced transitions to democracy during ?The Third Wave? of democratization. Our findings show that transition to democracy has an inconsistent impact on economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I argue that two important causes of international integration are given insufficient weight in the integration literature. First, poor countries seek to integrate with rich countries in order to secure budgetary transfers, import improved political institutions and increase political stability, increase the inflow of foreign capital, and secure large gains in market access for their firms. Second, rich countries integrate with poor countries when political instability in the poor country generates significant negative externalities for the rich country. An important determinant of whether those negative externalities will accrue is the relative geographic proximity of the countries. Because the benefits of integration with rich countries tend to be large for poor countries, and because democracy tends to be a prerequisite of integration with rich countries, credible prospects for integration increase the likelihood of democratization. For those countries for which dictatorship prevents beneficial integration, the opportunity cost of dictatorship is relatively high. Hence, their pro-democracy forces are more likely to successfully organize, attract political support, and establish democracy. I apply the argument to the case of EU expansion and regime type variation in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). I argue that a country?s geographic proximity to the EU core determines the credibility of its EU membership prospects, while credible membership prospects increase the likelihood of democratization. I claim that data from CEE are consistent with this argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political scientists have studied the causes of democracy for decades, and despite these scholars? valiant efforts, there is still little known about what causes the transition to democracy or stability in newly established democracies. One possible reason for this lack of knowledge is the failure of many political scientists to use, or even consider, political culture in systematic studies of democratization. Although almost all political scientists admit political culture plays a role in the democratization process, there has been virtually no empirical work done on the relationship between political culture and the transition to democracy. The following paper seeks to fill this void in the literature by empirically testing the relationship between Mary Douglas? theory of culture and consolidation of democracy. Using Douglas? theory, one can predict that a country undergoing consolidation of democracy should have an increase in the number of individualist and hierarchical cultures and a decrease in the number of egalitarian and fatalist cultures. These predictions are tested using with an OLS regression model, where democracy is regressed on political culture. From the data gathered from a sample of twenty-three countries, there seems to be strong support of the predictions made by the theory, but as pointed out, there are some problems to be solved through future research in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years there has been growing interest in the prospects for democracy in the Middle East. The Arab world is the only region to be virtually untouched by the Third Wave of democratization, and since the World Trade Center terrorist attacks and the U.S. war in Iraq, the prospects of democracy within this region have increasingly preoccupied both academics and policymakers. Recent scholarship, in an attempt to move beyond cultural explanations of the lack of democratic institutions in the Middle East, has explored the relationship between the nature of authoritarianism and political change. Most of this research, however, has attempted to shed light on this relationship by using comparative case studies. In addition, these studies tend to be informed by only one theoretical framework, and thus do not integrate other important explanatory variables. This paper attempts to address some of these shortcomings. In particular, we consider which combination of structural characteristics within the Middle East is most conducive to regime change in general, and democratization more specifically. These structural conditions include both traditional variables such as modernization, oil rent and ethnic fractionalization, as well as more recently introduced factors such as the nature of Middle Eastern authoritarianism (i.e. Sultanism, Dynasticism, etc.). To explore these relationships, we combine case studies with statistical analysis to gain a more nuanced understanding of these processes over time. Moreover, we draw on different theoretical traditions to provide a more complete account of the relationship between structural characteristics and regime change and democratization. Our findings suggest that the explanations of regime change and democratization in the Middle East are much more complex than many scholars suggest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political scientists have studied the design and political impacts of different election systems for some time now, but it is only recently that they have turned their attention to the question of why governments choose to alter the rules under which their respective politicians stand for office. One important consequence of this increased scholarly attention is the finding that this phenomenon occurs more frequently than originally thought. Indeed, the growing literature on this important topic has shown that election system change occurs not only in the world’s established democracies but also in countries that recently made the transition to democracy. Moreover, a small number of studies have shown that manipulations of electoral rules have even occurred in countries that have not completely made the transition to democracy. Between 1948 and 2000 inclusive, sixteen elections were held for the South Korean National Assembly, and, in ten of these national contests, politicians stood for office under election rules that had been altered. While most of these changes were minor and involved shifts in the number of district and PR seats, three were substantial. The first involved the replacement of the SMD system with a mixed system while the second change involved retaining the PR portion of the mixed system but replacing the SMD portion with a system of multimember districts. The final change also retained the PR portion of the mixed system but abandoned the multimember districts by returning to a SMD format. Two of the substantial changes and half of the minor changes discussed above occurred before South Korea made the full transition to democracy. Indeed, the non-democratic governments that enacted these changes, while not extensively popular, were hardly in danger of being eliminated through the electoral process. This raises the interesting question of why these governments found it necessary to support such institutional changes. We show in this paper that such governments, like their counterparts in democratic nations, are concerned less with the imperatives of short-term seat maximization than with how the eventual inclusion of increasingly popular opposition groups will affect their ability to remain in power and influence policy outcomes. The examination of the Korean case allows us to accomplish this because of that fact that election system changes occurred both under conditions of democracy as well as under conditions before the democratic transition have been completed. We evaluate this hypothesis by showing that the governments of South Korea acted in accordance with long-term imperatives under both political conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I present two alternative paradigms of democratization The first paradigm is the dominant approach in contemporary comparative politics and is exemplified by the work of Robert Dahl. This dominant paradigm focuses on procedural aspects of democracy. The proposed alternative paradigm moves beyond procedure by drawing upon Aristolelian traditions to create an explicitly normative concept. This approach is teleologically oriented to the ends of a democratic polity and builds upon the work of contemporary Aristotelians. The aim is to adapt these Aristotelian concepts to an applied, alternate notion of democratization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International actors play a prominent role promoting democratization throughout the world. However, social scientists have not yet thoroughly explained why sovereign nations accept these intrusions into their domestic political processes, and what the consequences of various forms of external ?assistance? may be. This paper explores the causes of one increasingly popular method of promoting democratization: international monitoring of elections. I argue that international election monitoring first occurred because it allowed leaders of countries truly committed to democratization to signal their type to international and domestic audiences. By distinguishing themselves from ?pseudo-democrats?, they were able to gain additional benefits in terms of legitimacy and additional economic assistance from Western nations. In order to continue to be viewed as a leader of a democratizing country, pseudo-democrats also invited monitors to their elections, even when they risked the documentation and exposure of non-democratic practices. Western democracies and intergovernmental organizations funded and supplied monitors because of their two pronged goal of supporting the spread of democracy and gaining additional information about less transparent political regimes. These incentives eventually led to an international norm under which all leaders of democratizing countries invite international monitors to their elections. As more pseudo-democrats attempted to mimic the signal of inviting monitors, the strength of the signal decreased, and international democracy promoters and ?true democrats? found ways to make inviting more costly for pseudo-democrats. This produced increases in the sophistication of monitoring methods, the number of monitors, and the duration of the monitoring missions. The trend is documented and the explanation is tested with an original dataset of all elections from 1970-2000. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does democracy foster political corruption? It is commonly observed that countries adopting competitive elections and market liberalization (“democratization”) also experience a rise in corruption. On a more complete conception of democracy, however, such correlations should not be surprising. Incomplete democratization often puts into place incentives for corruption, while lacking those elements of democracy that might enable those harmed by corruption to fight back. If corruption involves harms caused by exclusion, a key means for fighting corruption should involve empowering those harmed to protect themselves by democratic means: with information, arguments, organization, and votes. I shall argue in this paper that political corruption in a democracy is a form of exclusion, and that reducing corruption involves expanding democratic inclusions. This theoretical connection between corruption and exclusion helps to explain why those countries with the highest levels of democracy also tend to be the least corrupt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper articulates the relationship between social science and critical theory in a problem-oriented approach and how that approach can best promote the end of racial democratization in the case of the US. I discuss the role of social science in identifying and constituting the publics to which critique is addressed and the relation of both dominant and subordinate racial groups to the possibility of racial democratization. In particular, I advocate that critical theory should give more attention to the sources of racial hierarchy within white practice and the contradictions experienced by racial elites within that practice. These instabilities within racial hierarchy, as experienced by agents, can provide practical reasons for elites to participate in a politics of racial democratization. This attempts to address the under-theorized questions of how dominant publics relate to critical theory?s practical interest in social change and how stable egalitarian advancements are achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While democratic reforms of electoral institutions continue, their capacities for deepening democracy are limited by the large, pluralized, complex, and territorial political units through which they work. Much of the institutional innovation in democracy has shifted elsewhereâ€"into “governance,” the development and administration of public policy. The democratic potentials of governance reside in the potentially responsive linkages between what governments do and what citizens receive. From the perspective of democratic theory, however, this “governance driven-democratization” is a frontier. Concepts inherited from participatory democratic theory such as citizen engagement and direct democracy obscure more than they reveal. Most of the new experiments engage a relatively few citizens. Many involve only self-selected stakeholders and activists, and so by-pass broader public interests, or generate new forms of exclusion. In this paper, I specify the concept and domains of governance-driven democratization, and suggest a method for critical assessment. We can ask, on a case by case basis, about opportunities and dangers as measured by the democratic values of inclusion of the affected, empowerment, representation, and deliberation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Villagers’ Committee elections in Chinese rural areas highlight the promise as well as the challenge of democratization in a one-party state. Why are there huge regional variations in terms of voter turnout rate? Drawing on the vast literature of voter turnout, we develop a number of hypotheses in this paper. Data from a large survey conducted in 2005 have confirmed some (but not all) of them. Like voters in other countries, Chinese villagers are rational players and motivated by individual interests. More importantly, social organizations and electoral institutions have exhibited positive influence in voter mobilization. These empirical findings reveal important dynamics in China’s village democracy. They also imply some major challenges facing China’s rural democracy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research closely examines 220 pro-democracy contentious political challenges that occurred between 1981 and 1995 in seven Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. The data show that pro-democracy challenges tend to be large, nonviolent (especially using demonstrations), and organized by political parties. The main question addressed in this paper is the effect of pro-democracy protest on democratization processes. The clearest type of potential effect would be what I call the "democracy now" effect, in which pro-democracy challenges lead to regime change, but it is difficult to find clear evidence of this. Another way of looking at the effect of pro-democracy contentious challenges on democratization is to look for smaller reforms. There were twenty cases in which governments did grant concessions to pro-democracy contentious challenges, including loosening certain repressive measures, annulling controversial state and local elections, or reforming electoral procedures. A quantitative analysis showed that less authoritarian regimes were more likely to grant such concessions, as were governments that were weaker and more dependent on foreign aid and investment. Furthermore, challengers could increase the likelihood of gaining concessions by organizing contentious challenges that are longer, have larger participation, and utilize nonviolent yet disruptive tactics. One of the strongest factors was focusing demands on more concrete subnational issues, such as questionable local and state elections, rather than demanding "democracy now." ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyze transitions to democracy (and semi-democracy) and democratic breakdowns in 20 Latin American countries between 1945 and 2005. We argue that domestic conditions cannot explain the region-wide wave of democratization that took place in 1978-95. Our transition models control for standard socio-economic predictors as well as for domestic institutional conditions (including the nature of the authoritarian regime in transition models, and the type of party system in breakdown models). We include a battery of additional predictors to capture the impact of international factors, including measures of diffusion (using spatial lags, and distinguishing short-term and long-term effects) and an original indicator of US support for democracy. Our results indicate that political leaders tend to emulate transitions in neighboring countries in the short-run, even though there is no evidence of a long-term equilibrium effect at the regional level. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I argue that democratization (suffrage expansion, multiparty competition and the secret ballot) is neither sufficient nor necessary for generating fiscal redistribution (tax burden, progressivity of the tax structure, redistributive government spending). I offer a simple model of democratization as the result of intra-elite conflict that explains why this might be the case. I provide empirical evidence consistent with the model using detailed national and subnational data for the case of Argentina (1880-1950), which I collected during 10 months of archival research. Despite the fact that Argentina enjoyed per capita wealth on par with Canada, was ethnically more homogeneous that the United States, and did not suffer from the landlord-peasant social structure typical of other Latin American countries, the period of democratic rule (1912-1930) did not usher in redistributive taxation and spending as predicted by the workhorse median-voter models. Democratization caused horizontal redistribution across provinces rather than from rich to poor citizens. Strangely, taxation became more progressive and redistributive spending increased with the military coup of 1931. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the increasing importance placed on the promotion of Democracy to developing nations as well as the increased occurrence of failing and struggling Democracies, gaining a better understanding of the weaknesses of American democracy promotion is needed This analysis will examine the cases of Haiti, Afghanistan, and Georgia in order to analyze the relationship between the promotion of political development and the success or failure of democratic consolidation in an attempt to test the prospects for a new, business-model of American democracy promotion. The primary objective of this paper is to gain a better understanding of the dynamics of democratic transitions and consolidation in nations at various stages of democratization and the effect that they have on the overall success of Democracy promotion. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the “third wave of democratization” expectations regarding democratic strength and electoral dynamism were high among scholars. Particularly, in Latin America by 2000 most of the countries in the region were under democratic rule. Yet, enthusiasm quickly vanished as trust in government eroded and electoral participation started declining..x000d.Some have argued that trust in government is a key ingredient of a healthy democracy. Nonetheless, the relationship between democracy and trust is complex and even paradoxical. The legitimacy of political actors and institutions relies heavily on trust. Yet an intrinsic feature of any democratic regime is a “healthy distrust” or skepticism towards those who detain power on their behalf..x000d.The goal of this paper is to examine the impact that declining trust in government and public institutions has had on turnout throughout Latin America. Using the Latinobarometer 2005 survey we found that interpersonal trust does not influence people’s decision to vote. Trust in government and the institutional setting positively affects turnout. Interestingly, whenever voters have a pessimistic assessment of current political and economic events, the likelihood of voting also increases. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contrary to recent research, we find an "anti-political" budget cycle in a panel of fifteen Latin American democracies from 1973 to 2000. During the period in which Latin America underwent the most lasting and widespread wave of democratization, elections worked to limit the degree to which incumbents manipulate fiscal policies for electoral advantage. We show that governments undertook fiscal adjustment by reducing spending in the election year and in the inaugural year of the newly elected government. Though the capacity to enact austerity is moderated by the transition to democracy, new Latin American democracies also adhere to fiscal restraint. This paper shows that, at most, the period of democratic transition in Latin America may postpone bitter fiscal adjustments to periods when democratic regimes are stable. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Borderline democracies are political systems in transition, which have made tremendous progress in their democratic development, experienced some reversals on the way, and have arrived at an important historical juncture that will determine the future path of democratization. A borderline stage of democracy means that a democratic regime is still fragile and vacillating. To maintain a steady democratic advancement, such regimes may benefit from political science theories and the practices of other democratic regimes. This paper builds upon the relevant Western literature on democracy and applies it to the case of Russia. Russia represents a nascent democracy with unique cultural attributes and an adequate legislature and democratic institutions (the constitution, elections, and the constituency base). These institutions and written laws, however, lack full practical implementation and need further strengthening by grassroots movements. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from 1950-2000 this paper investigates whether IOs use a hypothesized mechanism to promote democracy within their member states. I test the effects of net characteristics of IO membership on the probability of democratic transition. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a twoâ€"stage model of religiousâ€"democratic change from Italy, this paper argues that friendly religion-state arrangements might be useful for democratic transitions in countries who host a religion that is seemingly hostile towards democracy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses original survey data from national elections in Russia in 2000 and 2004 to explore the sources of electoral support for Putin, an example of a strong hybrid regime leader. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests that previous literature has focused too narrowly on the institutional limitations to democratic responsiveness, to the neglect of the cultural-identity concerns raised in democratic theory. I provide and test a framework for conceptualizing identity, and noting its determinants, which takes into account a variety of factors previously addressed in the literature on EU support. Eurobarometer survey data is utilized in a multi-level model, allowing for the simultaneous consideration of both individual-level and state-level theories of identity formation. Identity development is found to be primarily influenced by diffuse elements of policy support and latent socialization mechanisms. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to offer a starting point for building an understanding of the factors that influence public confidence in the courts of nations that are undergoing a transition from authoritarianism to democracy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to offer insight into the potential and limits of civil society as a vehicle for deepening democratic values in newer democracies. I analyze a large cross-national survey of Latin American citizens in 18 countries to examine the question: Is civil society in Latin America nurturing democratic values or breeding authoritarian sentiments? A multidimensional analysis of civil society brings nuance to our understanding of the relationship between civil society and democratic values. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper re-examines the structure of the representative relationship and evaluates the treatment of representation in contemporary democratic theory with the aim of developing a normative theory of transnational democratic representation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper problematizes arguements which suggest that post-communist states should strive towards liberal and procedural democracy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper posits that contrary to modernization theory, economic progress does not lead to democratization, rather it leads to a process of de-democratization. A Latin American case study is used demomstrating this thesis. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of voluntary associations on democratization in the Middle East. It analyzes the role of professional associations and labor unions in fostering democratic ideals and virtues in Jordan and Egypt. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the complex relationship between the civilian control of the military and the consolidation of democracy in coup-free countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper shows the importance of national identity in the democracy building process. Authors argue that notions of national identity, adopted by political elites, significantly influence the outcomes of democratization process. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The organization of fair elections requires impartial and independent electoral management bodies. This paper analyses the impact of electoral competition on the independence of state level electoral institutions in Mexico, an emerging democracy. We posit a simple model where increased political competition in local elections leads to more independent electoral management bodies through various mechanisms at different stages of a democratization processâ??noting that competition in local, state assembly or gubernatorial elections do not produce the same incentives for electoral reform among all political parties. We develop an original index of the independence of electoral institutions for the Mexican states during the 1990 to 2004 period, and analyze a number of measures of political competition to assess some of the hypotheses derived from our model. Results indicate that increased competitiveness in governor and legislative races leads to more independent electoral institutions, whereas competition in municipal races does not. Increased competition from some political parties elicits larger increases in independence than others. We also find that, as the number of effective political parties increase, the pressure for further electoral reform eventually settles down. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent theoretical research has found that inequality strongly affects boththe likelihood that non-democracies transit to democracy and the likelihoodof survival in already established democracies. Empirically, however, theseclaims either rest on a small number of case studies or samples subject to severeselection bias. In this paper, I present a model showing that inequalitydoes not systematically affect the probability that non-democracies transit towarddemocracy, but that, once established, equal democracies are unlikely tocollapse. Using a Markov transition model and a dataset covering about 2400country-years between 1950 and 2001, I indeed find that - contrary to whatthe previous theoretical research has predicted - inequality has no systematiceffect on democratization. Inequality does, however, destabilize already establisheddemocracies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have witnessed a rash of sharia based bylaws in Indonesia. This paper examines how Islamist organizations have skillfully reframed their message in order to by-pass the Indonesian debate between nationalism and Islamism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attributed to conventional wisdom is the belief that higher levels of international trade promote political stability and democracy. The rationale is that economic openness enhances democratic performance, increasing the probability of regime survival. Many have made such assertions without much theoretical or empirical justification. While policy-makers proclaim the wonders of free trade in promoting democratic values, scholars have addressed the matter in limited ways. This paper attempts to remedy this lack of analytical attention by exploring the relationship between exposure to international trade and the prospects of democratic survival. Drawing on the evidence provided by a binary time series-cross-section (BTSCS) data set of 135 countries during the period 1950-90 (the Przeworski et al 2000 data set), it assesses the conditions under which democracies are more likely to survive. My main finding is that trade openness negatively affects the prospects for democracy. Basically, this paper calls attention to a rich field of research involving the intersection of the literatures on democratization and globalization. Studies that do try to bring the two bodies of literature together suffer from two main shortcomings. First, they focus primarily on the effects of financial liberalization on democracy, rather than on the impact of trade. Second, among the studies that are concerned with trade, the large majority reverses the direction of causality. Instead of examining the influence of trade on democracy, they look into democratic regimes to find explanations for certain levels of trade openness. The model here specified tries to capture the impact of both domestic and international level variables on the process of democratization. It is an improvement over earlier studies in the sense that it tries to control for the international political environment. In addition, this study is methodologically innovative because it imports from the sub-field of International Relations the logit model with temporal dummies that account for temporal independence and applies it in the study of the determinants of democratic survival. The nature of the data poses challenges to the simple logit analysis. BTSCS observations are likely to violate the assumption of temporal independence of ordinary logit models. In this case, the coefficients are biased, and the inferences drawn from an ordinary logit analysis tend to underestimate the standard errors, yielding overly optimistic results. Based on a solution to this problem proposed by Beck, Katz, and Tucker’s “Taking Time Seriously: Time-Series Cross-Section Analysis with a Binary Dependent Variable” (1998), we then estimate a logit model corrected for temporal dependence. Three main advantages of this type of model can be highlighted. First, the proposed technique does not require scholars to learn a totally new methodology to deal with BTSCS data. Second, as Beck, Katz, and Tucker (1998) well point out, a logistic regression corrected for temporal dependence can be readily “combined with Huber (1967) standard errors, which solve other problems inherent in BTSCS data” (p. 1283). Lastly, this method forces researchers to think about the problems of event-history analyses that are not addressed in logistic regressions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The third long wave of democracy which started in the 1970s has increased the number of countries which share the democratic ideal. New institutions were established, old ones were changed or abandoned, and the role of these institutions in society was altered. The third wave started in Southern Europe, then spread to Latin America and finally reached Europe again with the democratization of the former communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe. Although grouped in the Third Wave, the transitions of these countries have not only similarities but also notable differences. This paper will examine whether the earlier transitions in Latin America provided some lessons for the Central and Eastern European countries in their democratization. However, the major question asked is which Latin American experiences could be useful to the newly democratized countries in Europe and how more specifically can they be applied in the European context. The paper will mostly compare the two regions in terms of executive-legislative relations, political parties, and the relations between the state and its institutions, and society. Finally, a discussion about the future development of the new democratic states in Europe will examine the factors that make the Central and Eastern European countries’ road to democracy different from the Latin American. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the impact of democratic governance on the pension reforms in Mexico. The country's regime transition to democracy seems to have little effect on pension reforms. The democratic transition did not significantly improve the capability of the National Union of Workers of the Social Security and its labor allies to resist important socioeconomic reforms set forth by the government. This could be attributed to several factors, which includes the lack of popular support for independent labor's discourse.

This research will study the relationship between democracy (or democratization) and a country's environmental outcomes in Asia, including carbon dioxide damage and energy depletion etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of legislative control of bureaucracy in presidential regimes. Particular emphasis on the role of electoral democracy and the ability of congress to implement instruments of bureaucratic control in developing presidentialisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a model of democratic transitions in a society with two ethnic groups and two economic groups. When do politics revolve around ethnic as opposed to economic cleavages, and how does this affect the possibilities of a successful democratic transition? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indonesia, the most populous Islamic nation, is struggling to democratize. Part of this effort relies upon civics courses that attempt to impart democratic skills, as a supplement to Pancasila, the state ideology impressed upon students at every grade level of education. One-third of Indonesians are under fifteen years of age. They face challenges posed by corruption and poverty. They are also entering into a political environment where attitudes toward the United States are largely unfavorable, and one where many political parties, including Islamic parties, are actively recruiting voters. I explore a new civics curriculum in instruction as a means to foster commitment to democratic principles and behaviors considered important for democratic stability. The data analyzed here are based on a study I conducted on 1,500 adolescents in six diverse provinces in 2002-03. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For social movements, creating disruptions is often the only effective means to compel change. Surprisingly, the theoretical underpinnings of this commonplace assumption are seldom specified. It is regularly suggested that social movement success depends on expanding political opportunities or attracting outside support but, as conducive to movement triumph as these factors may be, the conditions under which they will be sufficient to bring victory are often unclear (Koopmans and Statham 1999). Moreover, confronted with ostensibly similar circumstances favorable to success, social actors vary in their response to movement demands (Giugni 1999). This variation highlights the fundamental question at issue: What explains the responses of targets and bystanders to movement demands? It is only by devising a theoretical account of the conditions under which these actors choose to yield that movement success or failure can be explained. To advance theory in this area, I focus here on variation in the responsiveness of economic actors in democratic polities to the demands of nonviolent reform movements. Starting from a barebones cost assessment hypothesis, I devise an economic opportunity structure to predict the likely responses of economic actors to movement demands based on variation in their exposure to diverse costs. In addition, I sketch a theory of sectoral vulnerability that predicts a set of consistent patterns of exposure to disruption costs across general types of economic interests. Various studies demonstrate that the characteristics of economic sectors shape the processes of democratic transitions, economic development, and even the likelihood of civil wars (Paige 1997, Shafer 1994, Boix 2003, Ross 1999). Following a similar logic, a cost assessment perspective also provides a basis for speculation about variation in the vulnerability of specific types of enterprises to disruption costs. To assess the merit of the cost assessment and sectoral vulnerability hypotheses, I consider the responses of economic actors to southern civil rights mobilization in five localities during the 1960s. The cases -- Greensboro, North Carolina; New Orleans, Louisiana; Albany, Georgia; Birmingham, Alabama; and Greenwood, Mississippi -- depict the causal processes contributing to the diverse range of reactions among movement targets from rapid acquiescence to tenacious intransigence. Drawing upon the many rich sources on the movement, I sketch the composition, vulnerabilities, and responses of the business community in each of the five cases. The case studies demonstrate the three essential components of this analysis: first, economic duress is a major proximate cause behind the decision of targets to make substantial concessions to movement demands; second, the variation in the behavior among these actors is consistent with the predictions based upon their assessment of aggregate disruption and concession costs (their position in the economic opportunity structure); and third, economic actors in certain sectors are consistently more likely to accept, ignore, or resist movement demands than others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While evidence continues to mount that democracies resort to military force reluctantly, the transition to democracy may in fact be a dangerous and conflictual one. With the eyes of the world now focused squarely on democratization, a reassessment of the relationship between regime change and inter-state conflict seems fitting. To date, the evidence remains mixed. No clear consensus has emerged on whether regime transition either increases or decreases conflict propensities. Some results indicate a positive relationship between incomplete transitions to democracy and inter-state conflict (Mansfield and Snyder 2002a,b), whereas others suggest that democratization generally decreases war likelihood (Gleditsch and Ward 1998, 2000). Gleditsch and Ward’s research (1998, 2000) points to the importance of the nature of the transition process, showing that high variation in regime scores increases conflict proneness. The research here builds on existing models of democratization and conflict by including a more fully specified vector of conflict variables and by using an updated set of cases. Further, interaction effects are explored to assess whether factors such as power or contiguity differentially impact the conflict propensity of transitioning states. Employing a generalized estimating equation with logit and poisson specifications, the results show that change towards democracy decreases the probability of involvement in militarized inter-state disputes. However, uneven or “rocky” transitions are found to increase conflict likelihood. In addition, I show that the effect of power and contiguity on conflict is substantially altered if states are in a regime transition. These findings suggest further consideration in future research on conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]