Reflection Paper 3

Democratization I

In this paper I will reflect my knowledge and my experience about the

democratization that I had perceived some knowledges that can be connecting to lessons I
learned from this week. I always think that democratic transition is the same to democratic
consolidation, but it was not, in which transition is easier than consolidation some countries
are able to change into democratic regime but this does not mean their regime stills holding
for long; in contrast, consolidation is pretty hard for getting because this mean democratic
values is absorbed in any fields of society, and it could consist for long. After finishing the
class, I am still really interesting in this topic so I will talk about the differences of transition
and consolidation which I am giving the Germany transition and consolidation in democracy
regime be an example. I will separate my information in three parts, firstly, Germany
democratic transition, secondly, Germany consolidation that I will use knowledges from the
class and reading to explain both of all, thirdly, my perception about Thailand’s
democratization and finally will be conclusion.

Germany is a great model of democracy in the world it is an efficient parliamentary

system, civil rights, and ideological diversity. All of these make Germany to be a model of
democratic regime. However, if we look back the history of German democratization.
We will find that the way to consolidated German’s democracy has been through trauma that
is hard to forget. But if we just look at the transitions not the consolidation, we will find that
Germany was transformed into democracy in the Weimar Republic following the defeat of
World War I ,yet under Weimar most of the Germans did not accept democracy because they
were forced to be from the alliance ; however, there are other reasons to collapse the Weimar
republic such as greatly paying for war reparations , high levels of inflation and the
government was broken with very little creditworthiness , middle class people hated
democracy from being forced to be. Finally, proportional electoral systems that create too
much dichotomous pluralism ultimately led to their support of the Nazi Party.

Hence, Germany had transitioned to democracy during Weimar because of being the
loser of the war, but that democracy had not been persisted due to lots of reason that under
the Weimar Republic. The Germans had to pay huge war reparations, the world economy
after World War I, had plummeted, and very important reason was to the German political
culture which was accustomed to the authoritarian regime of Bismarck welfare-state that
could benefit to people just like the democratic regime. Thus, all the reasons made the
Germans hated democracy. Democratic transition, in case of Germany come from the
international factor that was forced to democratize which was the international dimensions of
democratization.(Boix & Stokes, 2009)

However, the Germany’s democratic model today had been through trauma
experienced. What factors contributed to the consolidation of German democracy? here I will
bring to you a structural explanation of the changing political culture of the German people.
(Boix & Stokes, 2009) In addition, I will show that international and domestic factors had
affected on the settling of democracy, my argument is Germany democratic consolidation
took place through a divided state by the Germany was divided into west and east. Firstly,
the western was dominated by America, England and France. The German people from the
former with an authoritarian culture gradually became holding democratic values because of
being ruled by a democratic country, and the democratization of neighboring countries such
as France and England may lead to the diffusion of ideas.(Boix & Stokes, 2009) Secondly,
international aids from America to less pain of the loser as the result of WWI Germany paid
lots of war reparations this made people lose their self-esteem and hated democracy, so after
defeating of the German’s WWII , had taught the winning’s country that the war which
giving the losers a standing place to be was important to keep Germany from turning to the
authoritarian regime. The explanation for this due to after the defeat of World War I,
Germany was required to pay greatly war reparations, and coupled with the global economic
crisis that left about 1/3 of the workforce across the country unemployed; moreover,
investment slowed down, German bankruptcy and were also forced to embrace democracy.
All these factors made the Germans turn their backs on democracy to the authoritarian regime
- the Nazis, which brought the brutality of the dictatorship. The radical fascist powers and the
harsh policies led Germany to the defeat of the WWII. The second German defeating, the US,
therefore, learned about these issues and implemented a martial plan with three objectives:
first, to avoid zero unemployed, second to zero inflation by injecting money, and third to
reduce the pressure of people in German society because almost German people were totally
involved with the Nazis by stopping investigating and punishing people who have been
involved. All of these were in order to give the loser a place to stand and respect themselves.
Thirdly, the political culture had changed in the way people believe and accept democracy.
After the defeat in WWI, Germany converted to the Weimar Republic and was subjected to
democracy. Basically, the German people were proud themselves on the greatness of their
country from the war to conquer many European countries and soak up with Bismack's
competitive authoritarian regime (a welfare state by the authoritarian government) that the
authoritarian regime was not bad it benefited as a democracy state, so it led to the newness of
the Germans who had no experience with democracy at all. Thus, after World War I, many
people hated democracy and pro-democracy groups (including the left) because they believed
that democracy would bring a defeat in wars. However, after the WWII, the Germans went
through trauma and learned to live together and acceptance in democracy which evolved
through the Allied occupation, particularly West Germany, and the emergence of political
parties that were not ideological parties, but rather neutrals. Fourthly, bargaining and
negotiation not only between elites and middle class but every classes in society through
varieties of political parties. After the Holy Roman Empire period, despite the success of the
reunited Germany and the transition to a constitutional monarchy, the house of commons did
not have any power, as the senate would enact the law under power of the president. There
are many an ineffective proportional electoral system generates large numbers of small
parties. This was one of the problems that led to Weimar's collapse because it weakened the
parliament. In addition, political parties did not compromise, having extremely ideological
parties and the conflicts of the left parties themselves. All were lessoned to political parties
during the Second World War that they must adapt. Starting with the CDU Party, a very
central religious party turned to accessing to all classes and emphasized on compromise. The
party had been elected for over twenty years. Because the Germans no longer want purely
political ideological parties anymore caused the old parties to adjust their policies. Many
parties emphasized new ideas that were compatible with modern society, such as the Green
party did promote environmental policy. Through so much pain, people believe and accept
the parliamentary mechanism and believe that democracy is a turn, sometimes we lose but
next times we could win. The formation of a government is often from a coalition of large
parties. Sometimes they have different ideologies, but they believe in a democratic bargaining
process.

The politics in Thailand is such a complex one due to the overlapping of multiple
networks, the monarchy, the military, and the capitalists. The question is why Thailand is not
able to transition to the real democracy regime, in my opinion, I think the all elites that I
mentioned above they do not want to bargain with the people but instead using repression I
will use the legal constitution framework to explain Thailand’s democratic transition, that is
the Constitution to consider why Thailand cannot be transformed to democracy, we will see
the efforts of elites to push the regime back to the old as it used to be. In Constitution 1997,
we can say that this came from the middle-class winning to crack down the military
authoritarianism, and it was dubbed as one of the most democratic constitution in Thailand
caused it was inclusiveness of people to participate. However, the middle-class has changed
the position all the time depending on they have gotten or not the benefits, the middle-class
toppled the government again but this time it was not military but the government that was
elected by a lot of people. The Constitution 2007 happened. This constitution attempted to
increase judicial power; in contrast, decrease the people power. The judiciary has become the
tools for threatening the people. Moreover, this constitution was not enough to prohibit the
people, so the middle-class appealed the military to coup in 2014. Thailand was shut down
for seven years, and people which positioned opposing the military regime were threatened or
enforced disappearance. The authoritarian has tried to adapt itself to be fake democracy by
organizing the new Constitution 2017, which not including participation and contestation,
and the unfair election in 2019. The new constitution is not for people I could say that this
constitution try to go back on authoritarianism, actually nowadays it totally is
authoritarianism. The judicial power be super instruments for dictatorship such as excessive
judiciary power, the origin of prime minister, the power of senate to vote for prime minister.
The all constitution can guild us to view the exactly real regime so Thailand has struggled to
transition to democracy due to the elites try to keep positions and power by controlling the
constitution.

In short, it is the transition to German democracy, as was the case with Weimar this
does not mean that such democracy will remain stable for a long time it can be destroyed at
any time if the political culture of the people is not accepted in the regime. On the other hand,
the regime will be able to survive for long and stable because the political culture in which
people embrace democracy. Besides, political culture, internal and external factors play an
important role. As in the case of Germany, political party negotiations, foreign aid of
America were essential to Germany's transition to democracy. In Thailand if the elites do not
want to bargain with people, the civil society seems to be the final answer for establishing
democracy even if there have depraved reactions all the time from the above.

Reference

Boix, C., & Stokes, S. C. (2009). The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics. In The
Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics.
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199566020.001.0001