LECTURE 6 – REGIME TRANSITIONS

1. Democratic transitions

Types of democratic transitions

Weberian ideal types:

(1) Bottom-up transition  The people rise up to overthrow an autocratic regime in a

popular revolution.
(e.g. most post-communist transitions in Eastern Europe, People power Revolution in
the Philippines, June Resistance in South Korea, Orange Revolution in Ukraine, Jasmine
Revolution Ukraine, Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia)
 Collective Action Theory: The pursuit of some objective by groups of
individuals. Typically, the objective is some form of public good.
- A public good is NONEXCLUDABLE (people cannot be excluded from
enjoying the public good) + NONRIVALROUS (there is so much public
good for people to enjoy, no matter how many people consume it)
- It might expect that groups of individuals with common interests
would act collectively to achieve those interests; however, this is not
the case because of the free-rider problem.  Free-rider problem:
individual members often have little incentive to contribute to the
provision of a public good that will benefit all the group.
- 2 factors are crucial to determine the likely success of collective action
 The difference between K and N + The size of N
 - Collective action theory provides an explanation for the apparent
stability of communism in Eastern Europe and for why public
demonstrations in dictatorships are so rare.
- Although many people under the dictatorship share a common
interest in overthrowing the regime, this does not automatically mean
that they will take collective action to achieve it.
- Participation in collective action becomes the puzzle to explain.
 Tipping (threshold) models: It provides an explanation for the mass protests
that occurred in Eastern Europe in 1989.
- An individual must choose whether to publicly support or oppose the
dictatorship.
- Because it is dangerous to reveal their opposition to a dictatorship,
individuals who oppose the regime often falsify their preferences in
public.  Preference falsification
- Often there is a protest size in which individuals are willing to publicly
reveal their true preferences.
- As protests become larger, it becomes harder for dictatorships to
monitor and punish each individual
- Revolutionary threshold: The size of protest at which an individual is
willing to participate.  Individuals naturally have different
thresholds:
 Low thresholds  People are happy
to oppose the government regardless
of what others do.
 High thresholds  People protest
only if lots of others do.
 Very high thresholds  People
actually support the regime and are
extremely unwilling to protest.

- Revolutionary cascade: When the participation of one person triggers

the participation of another, and so on.
- Similar distributions of revolutionary thresholds can lead to a
revolution in one setting, but to a small, aborted and ultimately
unsuccessful protest in another.
- Economic recessions and deprivations can cause private preferences
and revolutionary thresholds to move against the regime without
actually causing a revolution.
- Structural factors are not sufficient to produce revolutions, although
they can make revolutions more likely by changing the distribution of
revolutionary thresholds.
 - Preference falsification means that the distribution of a society's
revolutionary thresholds is never known.  A society can come to the
brink of a revolution without anyone knowing.
- Our inability to observe private preferences and revolutionary
thresholds hides possible revolutionary cascades and makes
revolutions impossible to predict.
- The successful introduction of pro-democracy reforms in one country
reduced revolutionary thresholds elsewhere.  This led to a
revolutionary cascade across countries rather than across individuals
within countries. (e.g. The structural changes of the 1980s reduced
- Revolutionary Thresholds of Eastern Europeans)
- Why did the collapse of communism seem so inevitable in hindsight?
Historians who interviewed people across Eastern Europe report that
there was a great deal of repressed opposition to the communist
government that was destined to break down at some point. 
Preference falsification works both ways: (1) As a revolutionary
waterfall begins to snowball, supporters of the communist regime
may feel compelled to join the pro-democracy protests.
(2) Just as supporters
of democracy falsify their preferences under dictatorship to avoid
punishment, supporters of dictatorship falsify their preferences under
democracy.
- Revolutions will always appear inevitable in hindsight.

(2) Top-down transition  The dictatorial ruling elite introduces liberalizing reforms that
ultimately lead to a democratic transition.  The liberalization policy implies a
controlled opening of the political space and it often results from a division in the
authoritarian regime between hard-liners and soft-liners. This division is often caused
by declining economic conditions or social unrest.
 Mikhail Gorbachev, 1985: (1) Perestroika (economic restructuring)  A reform
policy aimed at liberalizing and regenerating the Soviet economy.
(2) Glasnost (openness)  A reform policy aimed at
increasing political openness.

2. Autocratic Transitions

1 - Politicians treat rivals as enemies.

2 - Rulers intimidate the press.
3 - Weakening of institutional buffers.
 As a result, states become authoritarian.

How do Democracies Die?

(1) With violent coups (e.g. Argentina, Brazil, Greece, Guatemala, etc.)
(2) Slowly at the hands of elected officials (e.g. Adolf Hitler, Hugo Chávez, etc.)

How vulnerable is US Democracy to Backsliding?

- Drawing lessons from the experiences of other democracies.  Constitutions alone

are not enough to contain autocrats, but political parties, organized citizens, and
norms can do it. Institutions can also become political weapons.
 - Litmus test to identify possible autocrats: “Will leaders exclude extremists?” + “Will
autocrats subvert democratic institutions?”

Four behavioral warning signs

1 - Rejection of democratic rules of the game.

2 - Denial of the legitimacy of political opponents.
3 - Toleration or encouragement of violence.
4 - Readiness to curtail civil liberties of opponents.

Recipes that Work Out

- Filtering out autocrats falls to political parties.

- Successful access control requires isolation of extremists.
- Major parties must forge a united front to defeat extremists in extraordinary times. 
“Cordon sanitaire”
- However, by putting presidential nominations in the hands of voters, the binding
primaries weakened the gatekeeping function of parties.  The rise of Donald Trump
to power is a classic example of ineffective gatekeeping (Republican Party gatekeepers
failed in their gatekeeping functions).

- Donald Trump meets all four criteria of authoritarian behavior.

- The combination of a potential and authoritarian crisis is deadly for democracy (e.g. Peru).

- Constitutional safeguards are not enough to secure democracy (e.g. the Germany of Hitler).

- Successful democracies are based on widely respected democratic norms.  Mutual

toleration + Institutional forbearance

- Possible futures for a post-Trump America (2018):

 Swift to democratic recovery with an implosion of the Trump presidency –

unlikely.
 Darker future – successful Trump presidency.
 Most likely scenario marked by greater polarization – muddle through.

Why should anybody take the authors seriously?

- Global historical evidence.

- Logical argument.
- Sound analysis.
- Accurate predictions.

3. Waves of Democratization

- Having constituted less than 1 in 4 of the world's regimes in the 1950s and 1960s,
democracies now account for almost 3 in 4.

- Democracy has developed in waves, with the “third wave” coming in 1974 and reaching
explosive proportions after 1989.
Huntington’s three waves of Democracy

1) 1828-1922: from “Jacksonian Democracy” in the US to Benito Mussolini in Italy.

2) 1943-1962: Italy, West Germany, Japan, Austria, etc.
3) 1974: Greece, Spain, Portugal, Latin America, Africa, Asia, etc.
4) ¿?

Why comparing Democracies?

What was once a small and homogeneous group of democratic regimes has now become a
large and heterogeneous one.

- Neo-institutionalism: Institutions as determinants of political outcomes.

- Institutional engineering (associated with the “third wave”): Specially interested in
why some systems appear to perform “better” than others.
- Scholarly research focused on the quality rather than the quantity of democracy.