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31. Ethiopia: The 100% Election

Author:
Leonardo R. Arriola and Terrance Lyons
Publication Date:
01-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Democracy
Institution:
National Endowment for Democracy
Abstract:
Ethiopia’s 2015 elections confirm that the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF)—having won 100 percent of parliamentary seats—has chosen to entrench an authoritarian system. We argue that this total election victory was meant as a signal to party cadres that defection is not tolerated. Our analysis of intra-regime dynamics shows how the EPRDF has responded to the death of Meles Zenawi through greater reliance on trusted party stalwarts for high-level posts. We conclude that growing demands from lower-level party cadres threaten to transform the ruling party from a disciplined national organization into a patronage-based alliance of ethnic factions.
Topic:
Authoritarianism, Elections, Democracy, and Rigged Elections
Political Geography:
Africa and Ethiopia

32. Burma Votes for Change: The Challenges Ahead

Author:
Igor Blazevic
Publication Date:
04-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Democracy
Institution:
National Endowment for Democracy
Abstract:
Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy’s sweeping victory in Burma’s November 2015 elections and the military’s acquiescence in allowing the NLD to take the reins of power have justly been described as remarkable and historic milestones. Yet a number of unresolved critical issues still loom. The aspirations of the people of Burma and of the newly elected democratic forces are still seriously constrained by the constitution imposed by the military, by Burman Buddhist nationalism, by entrenched oligarchic interests, and by tough structural conditions. The biggest challenge of all: Burma is a “robustly” plural and deeply divided society. Without political consensus about the nature of the state among key stakeholders, including all significant ethnic and religious groups, the military will not withdraw from politics, the transition to civilian rule will not happen, peace will remain elusive, and Burma’s democratization will stagnate. Burma’s transition can succeed and serve as an example of a “hard-case” country that successfully democratizes despite lacking favorable structural conditions. Yet it is important to understand just how fragile and unsettled the whole process still is.
Topic:
Nationalism, Authoritarianism, Elections, Democracy, and Military Government
Political Geography:
Asia, Burma, Southeast Asia, and Myanmar

33. Latin America’s New Turbulence: Crisis and Integrity in Brazil

Author:
Marcus Andre Melo
Publication Date:
04-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Democracy
Institution:
National Endowment for Democracy
Abstract:
For Brazil’s young democracy, this might seem to be the worst of times. The country’s once-booming economy has taken a nosedive along with global commodity prices; a monster public-corruption scandal is engulfing much of the political class and infuriating millions of ordinary Brazilians; and a president who barely won reelection only to abandon her basic fiscal-policy approach now teeters on the brink of impeachment and expulsion from office. Yet these storm clouds have a silver lining. For, grave as they are, they have put on vivid display the strength, independence, and public trust enjoyed by the country’s web of judicial and public-accountability institutions and attested to the free and energetic nature of the media in a country that only three decades ago was held under lockdown by a military dictatorship. Politics and the economy are in a crisis, but looking beneath the turmoil we can glimpse the power of the rule of law and see Brazilian constitutional democracy’s institutional resilience and fortitude.
Topic:
Democracy, Economy, State Building, and Dictatorship
Political Geography:
Brazil and South America

34. 25 Years After the USSR: What’s Gone Wrong?

Author:
Henry E. Hale
Publication Date:
07-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Democracy
Institution:
National Endowment for Democracy
Abstract:
A quarter century after the USSR’s breakup, the region it occupied has become more rather than less authoritarian on average. The rise has been neither steep nor steady, however, and the dominant regional pattern has been regime cycling, with movement both toward and away from authoritarianism at different points in time. Key causes are the tenacious pre-Soviet legacy of patronalism, the prevalence of presidentialist constitutions, and strong leadership popularity without the strong Western linkage and leverage that has often mitigated similar authoritarian tendencies in places like Africa and Latin America.
Topic:
Power Politics, Authoritarianism, and Democracy
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, and Latin America

35. The Danger of Deconsolidation: The Democratic Disconnect

Author:
Roberto Stefan Foa and Yascha Mounk
Publication Date:
07-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Democracy
Institution:
National Endowment for Democracy
Abstract:
The citizens of wealthy, established democracies are less satisfied with their governments than they have been at any time since opinion polling began. Most scholars have interpreted this as a sign of dissatisfaction with particular governments rather than with the political system as a whole. Drawing on recent public opinion data, we suggest that this optimistic interpretation is no longer plausible. Across a wide sample of countries in North America and Western Europe, citizens of mature democracies have become markedly less satisfied with their form of government and surprisingly open to nondemocratic alternatives. A serious democratic disconnect has emerged. If it widens even further, it may begin to challenge the stability of seemingly consolidated democracies.
Topic:
Public Opinion, Democracy, and Political stability
Political Geography:
Europe, North America, and Western Europe

36. Iraq’s Year of Rage

Author:
Mieczyslaw P. Boduszynski
Publication Date:
10-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Democracy
Institution:
National Endowment for Democracy
Abstract:
Iraqis of all ethnic and sectarian groups are fed up with the ineptitude and corruption of their political leaders and the institutions they control. Since 2015, they have turned out in record numbers to protest against their political elite. The protests that unfolded in 2015 and 2016 have highlighted two failings of Iraq’s post-2003 “democratic” order: 1) the entrenchment of a corrupt “partyocracy” that has captured the state and deepened sectarian divisions, and 2) the weakness of state institutions and the absence of the rule of law that have encouraged widespread corruption and fostered broad popular distrust of the post-Saddam Iraqi state.
Topic:
Social Movement, Democracy, Rule of Law, Protests, and Diversity
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East

37. The Specter Haunting Europe: The Unraveling of the Post-1989 Order

Author:
Ivan Krastev
Publication Date:
10-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Democracy
Institution:
National Endowment for Democracy
Abstract:
This article argues that the unraveling of the post–Cold War liberal order is manifested by the West’s declining influence in international politics; the waning attraction of liberal democracy; and the maturing tensions within liberal democratic regimes. This unraveling renders problematic the European project of trying to extend democracy beyond the nation-state—a project that has enhanced the appeal of illiberal democracy, defined by majoritarian regimes in which the majority transforms the state into its own private possession. These regimes have become an answer to the pressures of a world where popular will is the only source of political legitimacy, and global markets are the only source of economic growth. Their rise portends devastating and far-reaching consequences throughout Europe.
Topic:
Democracy, Global Markets, Legitimacy, and Post Cold War
Political Geography:
Europe

38. The Specter Haunting Europe: Distinguishing Liberal Democracy’s Challengers

Author:
Takis S. Pappas
Publication Date:
10-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Democracy
Institution:
National Endowment for Democracy
Abstract:
This article takes issue with the common practice of uncritically lumping together as “populist” the various and distinct challengers to democracy in contemporary Europe. It disaggregates and then classifies such challengers into three analytically distinct categories: antidemocrats, nativists, and populists. In so doing, the article reveals the geographical distribution of these categories across Europe, and highlights the value of treating each category based on its unique set of symptoms. It further shows that the gravest threat to contemporary liberalism comes from populist rather than from antidemocratic or nativist parties.
Topic:
Democracy, Populism, Liberal Order, Nativism, and Post Cold War
Political Geography:
Europe

39. Facing Up to the Democratic Recession

Author:
Larry Diamond
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Democracy
Institution:
National Endowment for Democracy
Abstract:
Democracy has been in a global recession for most of the last decade. Yet the picture is not entirely bleak. We have not seen “a third reverse wave.” The key imperative in the near term is to work to reform and consolidate the democracies that have emerged during the third wave—the majority of which remain illiberal and unstable, if they remain democratic at all. It is vital that democrats in the established democracies not lose faith. Democrats have the better set of ideas. Democracy may be receding somewhat in practice, but it is still globally ascendant in peoples’ values and aspirations.
Topic:
Global Recession, Democracy, and Political stability
Political Geography:
Global Focus

40. The Myth of Democratic Recession

Author:
Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Democracy
Institution:
National Endowment for Democracy
Abstract:
Contrary to widespread belief, there is no global “democratic recession.” Despite less favorable international conditions, levels of democracy in the world remained stable in the 2000s. Perceptions of democratic recession originate in excessive post–Cold War optimism, rooted in the successful democratizations of the 1980s. During the early 1990s, economic crisis, weakened states, and external pressure forced many autocrats to abandon power or tolerate opposition. These authoritarian crises were widely viewed as democratic transitions, even though most were not. Subsequent authoritarian (re)consolidation was thus perceived as democratic “backsliding.” Misplaced pessimism was reinforced by disappointment over non-democratization in China, the Middle East, and elsewhere, despite the fact that most remaining dictatorships existed amid highly unfavorable conditions for democratization.
Topic:
Democratization, Authoritarianism, Democracy, and Dictatorship
Political Geography:
Global Focus