Chapter Notes CHAPTER 8 How does Democracy transition Third wave of democratization the surge in democratic transitions that have occurred around the world since 1974 o Portugal Greece Spain Africa Asia Eastern Europe and Latin America Bottom Up Transition one in which the people rise up to overthrow an authoritarian regime in a popular revolution Top down Transition one in which the dictatorial ruling elites introduces liberalizing reforms that ultimately lead to a democratic transition There is a third type which is when external actors influence Bottom up and top down are related because in the real world transitions are characterized by both types transition Bottom up o The opening of the Berlin Wall o It resulted in a unified democratic Germany o It began with postwar Germany being a highly stable prosperous communist nation o The collapse began with the Chernobyl which revealed the unchangeable and secretive nature of the Communist Party o Perestroika a reform policy aimed at liberalizing and regenerating the soviet economy o Glasnost a reform policy aimed at political openness o The effect of these policies gave encouragement to reformists and opposition groups in many areas of Europe o The tipping point was when Hungary opened its borders with Austria and breached the iron curtain o This lead to the emergence of the Neues Forum an opposition group o The government failed to put this down and quickly pro democratic demonstrations spread across Germany o These protests eventually forced the government to allow citizens to travel to the West freely o Finally after continued protests East and West Germany were reunited on October 3 1990 o The Velvet Revolution in Czech was a bottom up as well Externally imposed o The 2003 US invasion of Iraq has started the debate as to if democracy can be imposed upon a country or not o Selectorate Theory theory that states that intervention fails to produce democracy o it has been found that intervention leads to a reduction in democracy relative to what it could have been with no intervention o There is evidence to support that externally imposed Democracy will not work Collective action the pursuit of some objective by groups of individuals typically it is some type of public good Public good something that is nonexcludable and nonrivalrous Nonexcludable you cannot exclude people from enjoying the public Nonrivalry there is just as much public good no matter how much good people consume it o Ex Clean Air Collective Action or Free Rider Problem the fact that individual members of a group often have little incentive to contribute to the provision of a public good that will benefit all members of the group Collective action explains why revolutions are so rare Tipping model See Game theory p 283 Preference Falsification not revealing ones true preferences in public o A societies distribution of revolutionary thresholds is never known to individuals in the society this means a society can get to the brink of a revolution and never know it Revolutionary Threshold the size of protest at which an individual is willing to participate Revolutionary Cascade when one person s participation triggers the participation of another which triggers the participation of another and so on It is difficult to tell the difference between stable and fragile dictatorships Revolutions occur with calculated purposeful human action In the 80s structural changes lowered the revolutionary thresholds in Eastern Europe which triggered revolutionary cascades The collapse of communist Eastern Europe was inevitable Revolutionary Bandwagon when a person joins the revolution but still wants it to fail just because the revolutionary cascade is snowballing Arab Spring o Began in 2010 o Protesters became overwhelming and the president of Tunisia fled o Protests spread beyond just Tunisia o Information is important to a revolutionary cascade and the use of social media caused the spread of the revolution faster few years Top down o These new forms of social media make it easier for dictatorial regimes to control citizens but it also helps them rebel a catch 22 o Many other communication technologies play a key role in the successes of revolutions o This will be an area where much research is done in the next o See game theory incomplete information game p 311 o This is caused by a policy of liberalization from the government itself o Chile Brazil Egypt Jordan Morocco Uruguay and Poland o Top down transitions occur between soft liners and hard Soft liner person who wants reform player 1 liners Hard liner person who is content with current state o Policy of liberalization controlled opening of political space and might include the formation of political parties holding elections writing a constitution establishing a judiciary opening a legislature and so on o This process is an attempt by the elites to divide and control opposition groups o The goal is a Broadened Dictatorship o What this does is lower the oppositions willingness and ability o In many cases this causes the dictatorship to become highly to challenge the elites stable o If soft liners liberalize it can either accept the terms and become a broadened dictatorship or they can take advantage of their new freedoms and organize against the dictatorship o The most common reaction by leaders is force o The only other choice they have is to become democratic South Korea Poland o Complete information game where each player knows all the information that there is to know o Top down transitions are not possible in situations in which players know everything or have complete information o Top down transitions can also occur if authoritarian soft liners are incorrect about the type of opposition that they are facing o If the soft liners are wrong and the democratic forces are strong then this will lead to a top down transition o In Poland the government backed down from the rebellions and allowed them to make a trade union This only caused further rebellions with the polish s new freedoms The government soon issued martial law Soon the union forced the government to allow elections and shortly after the Trade Union won the majority of seats the government not believing them powerful enough to do so This caused Poland to become a democracy a top down transition CHAPTER 9 Does the type of regime make a difference Does democracy make a difference in people s lives o It generally increases wealth number of children with a physician
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