Democratization is the transition to a more democratic political regime. It may
be the transition from an authoritarian regime to a full democracy, a transition
from an authoritarian political system to a semi-democracy or transition from a
semi-authoritarian political system to a democratic political system. The outcome
may be consolidated or democratization may face frequent reversals. Different
patterns of democratization are often used to explain other political
phenomena, such as whether a country goes to a war or whether its economy
grows. Democratization itself is influenced by various factors, including
economic development, history, and civil society. The ideal result from
democratization is to ensure that the people have the right to vote and have a
voice in their political system. Causes of democratization
There is considerable debate about the factors which affect or ultimately limit
democratization. A great many things, including economics, culture, and
history, have been cited as impacting on the process. Some of the more frequently
mentioned factors are: Wealth. A higher GDP/capita correlates
with democracy and while some claim the wealthiest democracies have never been
observed to fall into authoritarianism, the rise of Hitler and the Nazis in
Weimar Germany would be an obvious counter-example that would render the
claim a truism. There is also the general observation that democracy was
very rare before the industrial revolution. Empirical research thus lead
many to believe that economic development either increases chances for
a transition to democracy, or helps newly established democracies
consolidate. One study finds that economic development prompts
democratization but only in the medium run. This is because development may
entrench the incumbent leader but make it more difficult for him deliver the
state to a son or trusted aide when he exits. However, the debate about whether
democracy is a consequence of wealth, a cause of it, or both processes are
unrelated, is far from conclusion. Another study suggests that economic
development depends on the political stability of a country to promote
democracy. Social equality. Acemoglu and Robinson
argued that the relationship between social equality and democratic
transition is complicated: People have less incentive to revolt in an
egalitarian society, so the likelihood of democratization is lower. In a highly
unequal society, the redistribution of wealth and power in a democracy would be
so harmful to elites that these would do everything to prevent democratization.
Democratization is more likely to emerge somewhere in the middle, in the
countries, whose elites offer concessions because they consider the
threat of a revolution credible and the cost of the concessions is not too high.
This expectation is in line with the empirical research showing that
democracy is more stable in egalitarian societies.
Culture. It is claimed by some that certain cultures are simply more
conductive to democratic values than others. This view is likely to be
ethnocentric. Typically, it is Western culture which is cited as "best suited"
to democracy, with other cultures portrayed as containing values which
make democracy difficult or undesirable. This argument is sometimes used by
undemocratic regimes to justify their failure to implement democratic reforms.
Today, however, there are many non-Western democracies. Examples
include: India, Japan, Indonesia, Namibia, Botswana, Taiwan, and South
Korea. Research finds that "Western-educated leaders significantly
and substantively improve a country’s democratization prospects".
Foreign intervention. Democracies have often been imposed by military
intervention, for example in Japan and Germany after WWII. In other cases,
decolonization sometimes facilitated the establishment of democracies that were
soon replaced by authoritarian regimes. For example, in the United States South
after the Civil War, former slaves were disenfranchised by Jim Crow laws after
the Reconstruction Era of the United States; after many decades, U.S.
democracy was re-established by civic associations and an outside military.
Education. It has long been theorized that education promotes stable and
democratic societies. Resarch shows that education leads to greater political
tolerance, increases the likelihood of political participation and reduces
inequality. One study finds "that increases in levels of education improve
levels of democracy and that the democratizing effect of education is
more intense in poor countries". Transitions
Democracy development has often been slow, violent, and marked by frequent
reversals. = Historical Cases =
In Great Britain, the English Civil War was fought between the King and an
oligarchic but elected Parliament. The Protectorate and the English Restoration
restored more autocratic rule. The Glorious Revolution in 1688 established
a strong Parliament that passed the Bill of Rights 1689, which is still in
effect. It codified certain rights and liberties for individuals and set out
the requirement for regular parliaments, free elections, rules for freedom of
speech in Parliament and limited the power of the monarch, ensuring that,
unlike much of the rest of Europe, royal absolutism would not prevail. Only with
the Representation of the People Act 1884 did a majority of the males get the
vote. The American Revolution created the
United States. In many fields, it was a success ideologically in the sense that
a relatively true republic was established that never had a single
dictator, but voting rights were initially restricted to white male
property owners. Slavery was only abolished with the American Civil War
and the Civil Rights given to African-Americans became achieved in the
1960s. The French Revolution briefly allowed a
wide franchise. The French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars lasted for
more than twenty years. The French Directory was more oligarchic. The First
French Empire and the Bourbon Restoration restored more autocratic
rule. The Second French Republic had universal male suffrage but was followed
by the Second French Empire. The Franco-Prussian War resulted in the
French Third Republic. The German Empire was created in 1871.
It was followed by the Weimar Republic after World War I. Nazi Germany restored
autocratic rule before the defeat in World War II .
The Kingdom of Italy, after the unification of Italy in 1861, was a
constitutional monarchy with the King having considerable powers. Italian
fascism created a dictatorship after the World War I. World War II resulted in
the Italian Republic. The Meiji period, after 1868, started
the modernization of Japan. Limited democratic reforms were introduced. The
Taishō period saw more reforms. The beginning of the Shōwa period reversed
this until the end of the World War II. = Since 1972 =
According to a study by Freedom House, in 67 countries where dictatorships have
fallen since 1972, nonviolent civic resistance was a strong influence over
70 percent of the time. In these transitions,
"changes were catalyzed not through foreign invasion, and only rarely
through armed revolt or voluntary elite-driven reforms, but overwhelmingly
by democratic civil society organizations utilizing nonviolent
action and other forms of civil resistance, such as strikes, boycotts,
civil disobedience, and mass protests." Indicators of democratization
One influential survey in democratization is that of Freedom
House, which arose during the Cold War. The Freedom House, today an institution
and a think tank, stands as one of the most comprehensive "freedom measures"
nationally and internationally and by extension a measure of democratization.
Freedom House categorizes all countries of the world according to a seven-point
value system with over 200 questions on the survey and multiple survey
representatives in various parts of every nation. The total raw points of
every country places the country in one of three categories: Free, Partly Free,
or not Free. One study simultaneously examining the
relationship between market economy, economic development, and political
freedom found that high economic freedom increases GDP/capita and a high
GDP/capita increases economic freedom. A high GDP/capita also increases political
freedom but political freedom did not increase GDP/capita. There was no direct
relationship either way between economic freedom and political freedom if keeping
GDP/capita constant. Views on democratization
Francis Fukuyama wrote another classic in democratization studies entitled The
End of History and the Last Man which spoke of the rise of liberal democracy
as the final form of human government. However it has been argued that the
expansion of liberal economic reforms has had mixed effects on
democratization. In many ways, it is argued, democratic institutions have
been constrained or "disciplined" in order to satisfy international capital
markets or to facilitate the global flow of trade.
Samuel P. Huntington wrote The Third Wave, partly as response to Fukuyama,
defining a global democratization trend in the world post WWII. Huntington
defined three waves of democratization that have taken place in history. The
first one brought democracy to Western Europe and Northern America in the 19th
century. It was followed by a rise of dictatorships during the Interwar
period. The second wave began after World War II, but lost steam between
1962 and the mid-1970s. The latest wave began in 1974 and is still ongoing.
Democratization of Latin America and the former Eastern Bloc is part of this
third wave. A very good example of a region which
passed through all the three waves of democratization is the Middle East.
During the 15th century it was a part of the Ottoman Empire. In the 19th century,
"when the empire finally collapsed [...] towards the end of the First World War,
the Western armies finally moved in and occupied the region". This was an act of
both European expansion and state-building in order to democratize
the region. However, what Posusney and Angrist argue is that, "the ethnic
divisions [...] are [those that are] complicating the U.S. effort to
democratize Iraq". This raises interesting questions about the role of
combined foreign and domestic factors in the process of democratization. In
addition, Edward Said labels as 'orientalist' the predominantly Western
perception of "intrinsic incompatibility between democratic values and Islam".
Moreover, he states that "the Middle East and North Africa lack the
prerequisites of democratization". Fareed Zakaria has examined the security
interests benefited from democracy promotion, pointing out the link between
levels of democracy in a country and of terrorist activity. Though it is
accepted that poverty in the Muslim world has been a leading contributor to
the rise of terrorism, Zakaria has noted that the primary terrorists involved in
the 9/11 attacks were among the upper and upper-middle classes. Zakaria has
suggested that the society in which Al-Qaeda terrorists lived provided easy
money, and therefore there existed little incentive to modernize
economically or politically. With little opportunity to express themselves in the
political sphere, scores of young Arab men were "invited to participate"
through another avenue: the culture of Islamic fundamentalism. The rise of
Islamic fundamentalism and its violent expression on September 11, 2001
illustrates an inherent need to express oneself politically, and a democratic
government or one with democratic aspects is quite necessary to provide a
forum for political expression. Larry Pardy observed that governments
are motivated by political power, which is generated by two factors: legitimacy
and means. The legitimacy of a democratic government is achieved
through the consent of the population through fair and open elections while
its financial means are derived from a healthy tax base generated by a vibrant
economy. Economic success is based on a free market economy with the following
elements: property rights, a fair and independent judiciary, security, and the
rule of law. The core elements that support economic freedom convey the same
basic rights onto individuals. Conversely, there can be no rule of law
for investors when governments crack down on political opponents and no
property rights for industry when personal wealth can be arbitrarily
seized. A sustainable democracy has to involve
far more than fair and open elections. It rests on a solid foundation of
economic and political freedom that, for Western nations, had to be pried from
governments over centuries. It goes back at least to 1215 when King John accepted
limits on his powers and conceded certain rights in the Magna Carta. Then,
as now, governments will be motivated to support rights and freedoms only when it
directly impacts the government’s ability to maintain and exercise
political power. It does not arise with idealistic notions of democracy and
freedom, implied fiscal contracts with citizens, exhortations from donor states
or pronouncements from international agencies. Fukyama was essentially
correct with his assertion regarding the end of history - that Western liberal
democracy represents the endpoint of mankind’s ideological evolution. It
represents a mechanism whereby our free market system efficiently allocates
resources in our economy while co-existing in a symbiotic relationship
with our democratic system of government. Our governments are
incentivized to protect the economy while the foundations for that economy
create the conditions for democracy. Democratization in other contexts
Although democratization is most often thought of in the context of national or
regional politics, the term can also be applied to:
= International bodies = International bodies where there is an
ongoing call for reform and altered voting structures and voting systems.
= Corporations = The concept of democratization can also
be applied in corporations where the traditional power structure was top-down
direction and the boss-knows-best; This is quite different from consultation,
empowerment and a diffusion of decision making throughout the firm, as advocated
by workplace democracy movements. = The Internet =
The loose anarchistic structure of the Internet Engineering Task Force and the
Internet itself have inspired some groups to call for more democratization
of how domain names are held, upheld, and lost. They note that the Domain Name
System under ICANN is the least democratic and most centralized part of
the Internet, using a simple model of first-come-first-served to the names of
things. Ralph Nader called this "corporatization of the dictionary."
= Knowledge = The democratization of knowledge is the
spread of knowledge among common people, in contrast to knowledge being
controlled by elite groups. = Design =
The trend that products from well-known designers are becoming cheaper and more
available to masses of consumers. Also, the trend of companies sourcing design
decisions from end users. See also
Third Wave Democracy Chilean transition to democracy
Democratisation in Hong Kong Democratisation in the Soviet Union
Color revolution Democracy activists
Democracy in the Middle East Democratic peace theory
Democracy promotion Good governance
Metapolitefsi Nation-building
Nonviolent revolution Portuguese transition to democracy
Spanish transition to democracy Transitional justice
Transitology References
Further reading Thomas Carothers. Aiding Democracy
Abroad: The Learning Curve. 1999. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace. Josep M. Colomer. Strategic Transitions.
2000. Baltimore, Md: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Daniele Conversi. ‘Demo-skepticism and genocide’, Political Science Review,
September 2006, Vol 4, issue 3, pp. 247–262
Haerpfer, Christian; Bernhagen, Patrick; Inglehart, Ronald & Welzel, Christian,
Democratization, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780199233021 .
Inglehart, Ronald & Welzel, Christian, Modernization, Cultural Change and
Democracy: The Human Development Sequence, New York: Cambridge University
Press, ISBN 9780521846950 . Frederic C. Schaffer. Democracy in
Translation: Understanding Politics in an Unfamiliar Culture. 1998. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press. Fareed Zakaria. The Future of Freedom:
Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad. 2003. New York: W.W. Norton.
Christian Welzel. Freedom Rising: Human Empowerment and the Quest for
Emancipation. 2013. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN
978-1-107-66483-8. Tatu Vanhanen. Democratization: A
Comparative Analysis of 170 Countries. 2003. Routledge. ISBN 0415318602
External links International IDEA
Did the United States Create Democracy in Germany?