L3: Transitions to Democracy

Question 1

What is democratization used for?

Answer 1

To prolong the life of the autocratic regime:

• Create veil of “legitimacy” for internal and external audiences
• Gain information about possible threats to regime by giving opposition voice
• Give opposition voices some policy control in order to reduce hostility towards regime

Question 2

When is a a democratic transition complete?

Answer 2

• litical procedures produce an elected government
• government is the direct result of a free and popular vote
• government has the authority to generate new policies
• executive, legislative and judicial power are independent

Question 3

External forces initiating democratization

Answer 3

• World Bank, IMF, and conditional lending
• United Nations (development funds, electoral assistance, peacekeeping)
• War and occupation (Germany, Japan, Iraq, Afghanistan)
• European Union

Question 4

Internal forces initiating democratization

Answer 4

• Rulers themselves (e.g., Greece, Portugal, and Spain in the 1970s)
• Protest movements, violent revolts, and revolutions (e.g., East Germany in 1989, Tunisia in 2011, Ukraine in 2014)

Question 5

democratization process (Przeworski)

Answer 5

how to institutionalize uncertainty without threatening the interests of those who can still reverse the process (round tables)

Question 6

Roundtable talks:

Answer 6

• coordinate actions and establish minimum level of trust with:
  • Major negotiators: reformers in government + moderates in opposition; regime hardliners + radical opposition are excluded.
• Central item of discussion: legal continuity vs. new constitution

Question 7

When constitutional change (about justice):

Answer 7

• establishment of independent justice
• transitional justice (How to deal with the crimes and injustices of the outgoing authoritarian regime): dilemma: past vs. present (and future)

Question 8

• establishment of independent justice:

Answer 8

• Safeguards constitutional order, overruling contrary laws and executive acts
• Protecting citizen rights and media freedoms

Question 9

• transitional justice

Answer 9

•	Distributive justice: 
Retributive (punishment or amnesty)  
Reparatory (how to deal with victims of authoritarian regime)
•	Truth and reconciliation 
•	Lustration (“purification”)