Creating a democracy is no easy task. It requires a lot of internal and external factors that could either make or break a successful transition from a non-democratic regime to a democratic one. This essay explains the three major threats to democratic consolidation (international relations, elite commitment, and the role of the military) that countries undergoing transitions from a non-democratic regime to a democratic one might face. This essay will also explain on the argument on why international relations is considered the greatest threat to democratic consolidation.
International Relations
International relations represents one of the three major threats to democratic consolidation in a country undergoing democratization. According to Pinnell, if a new regime is not supported by neighboring or powerful states, then it may have to contend on a possibility of a conflict on legitimacy, either directly by outside neighboring/powerful states through open conflict between two countries through military/economic means like war, embargoes, sanctions, etc... and/or indirectly by having outside neighboring/powerful states supporting counter-revolutionary and anti-democratic insurgents/political forces in an internal conflict bent on destroying any democratic consolidation of the new regime and reviving the old authoritarian regime.1
Elite Commitment
Elite commitment represents another factor on whether democratic consolidation can make or break. A successful democratization requires the old elite to tolerate loss of power, in which case it could mean giving the old elite new positions of power in a much lower level, or having at least a comfortable way to step down.1 This may require a strong level of negotiations and compromis...
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In the years immediately after the First World War, a promising new era of democracy seemed to be unfolding. The autocratic regimes in Russia, Germany and Austria, were all overthrown and replaced by republics. The seven newly created states in Europe all adopted the republican form of government. Democracy seemed triumphant in the post-war world. Yet within two decades, many democratic countries in Europe were taken over by some kind of dictatorship.
I came to America in the year of 1994; I was born in Iraq during the regime of Saddam Hussein. My argument is a positive point of view of the American Government, because I grew up in a place where we did not have freedom. When my family came to America, we were able have opportunities that we were never able to have. As you know the concept of “democracy is a complicated” (Models of Democracy 1). On the first page of American Democracy in Peril by William E. Hudson, the book often brings up the exact definition of the government or the word democracy. For example, he brought up two interesting perspectives of the idea of democracy in America one is “the dictionary definition, “government (or rule)” (1). One point of view he brings up is what does “government” or “rule” truly mean, does it mean government is made by the people, and that all people of the government are directly
American foreign policy is usually associated with the prevailing analogy of the United States serving as the world police. When gross human rights violations occur it is often expected that America speaks out and condemn the actions and perpetrators. Its people based republic and democracy is revered and has been suggested and implemented in places where harsh dictatorships and autocracies had previously prevailed. However, in truth, US involvement and its need to push the “only working democracy” in places where countries that are deemed in need of help by the US actually cultivate their own working government's separate from the pressing ideology of the US that are actually successful predating their involvement. And when these differing
Gerken H., Fraga L.R., Fung A., Issacharoff S., Karlan P.S., Keyssar A., Overton S. (2006, September/October). Six ways to reform democracy. Retrieved from http:// http://bostonreview.net/BR31.5/gerken.php
Factions pose a threat to democracy and its associated ideals. This notion is proven through the overpowering of the minority by the majority, in which the opinions of certain groups are silenced, while others amplified. This majority and minority also forge animosity that not only creates competition, but sways the government away from its true purpose. Therefore, since the purpose of government is swayed, leadership becomes an issue. These issues are part of a cluster of other issues that prove factions detrimental to democracy and its principles.
179; Lynn-Jones 1998). Compelling evidence in support of this weakness is especially demonstrative in the state of Rwanda in 1993, whereby within the year an estimated 500,000-1,000,000 Rwandans were killed as a result of democracy promotions triggering nationalistic violence. In Burma in 1990, the elections sparked ruthless military oppression that was especially aimed towards supporters and members of the National League for Democracy (NLD). In Indonesia, dictatorships deploy militaries and security agencies in an attempt to undermine electoral transitions (Staniland n.d.). Conversely, there have been a slew of states that have avoided major internal and external conflict in their transition to democracy (Lynn-Jones 1998). However, the fact remains that democratic advocacy has the capacity to intensify state turbulence rather than assuage it, giving rise to violent nationalism and ethnic
Janda, Kenneth, Jeffrey M. Berry and Jerry Goldman. The Challenge of Democracy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004.
In deciphering what constitutes the brilliance of democracy then, we find that it is not citizens’ ability to make informed decisions or an unflawed and subtly manipulated election process, but the unapparent way in which democracy persuades citizens – informed or not - and leaders – corrupt or not – toward working to build better, more prosperous societies.
There have been enormous efforts to spread democracy as a political system throughout the world by the developed democratic countries and the international development organizations including the World Bank. By the late 1990s the United States alone spent over a half billion dollars to promote democratic expansion throughout the world (Diamond, 2003). These were done considering that the democratic system leads towards development. As a result in the late 20th century we saw a huge political transformation towards democracy. During the last few decades a huge number of countries adopted democracy as their political system. However, it retain a big question how far democracy is successful in bringing development of a country? At this stage, some people also criticizes the effort of democratization arguing that it is done without considering the context of a country, sometimes democracy is not ideal for all countries and it is an effort to extinct diversity of political system. In studying the literature regarding the debate, we found a paradoxical relationship between democracy and development. Some argue that democracy has failed to ensure expected outcomes in terms of development. While others confronted that democracy has a considerable impact on development. Another group of people argue that form of political system actually does not have any impact on development process. On the verge of these debates, some development institutions and academics throw light on why democracy is not working properly, and what measure should be taken to make it more successful in bringing effective development of developing countries. Consequently, this writing is an effort of revisiting the different views about impact of democra...
Democratic states are perceived to be more peaceful because “democracies do not attack each other.” The proposition that democracies never (or rarely; there is a good deal of variation about this) go to war against one another has nearly become a truism. Since Michael Doyle’s essay in 1983 pointed out that no liberal democracy has ever fought a war with another democracy , scholars have treated pacifism between as democracies, “as closest thing we have to an empirical law in international relations.” The democratic peace proposition encourages hope for a new age of international peace. Over the years since Michael Doyle’s essay a lot of literature has been written about “democratic peace theory”. A lot of analysis has focused on the claim- that liberal democracies do not fight each one another. There is a lot of action- reaction sequence in the academic arguments. As an idea catches on it accumulates adherents. The more popular an idea, there is more likehood of a critical reaction that raises serious and strong reservations about the validity of the new idea. In this essay, I would like to examine the claim- that democratic states are more peaceful as democracy causes peace. In this essay I draw on the writings of John M. Owen, Michael Doyle, Christopher Layne, Mansfield and Snyder, Alexander Wendt, Robert Keohane and Lisa Martin for their views on why democracies do not fight one another and then deduce my own conclusions.
The democratic peace theory stems from the generally optimistic liberal tradition which advocates that something can be done rectify the effects of an anarchical system, especially when it comes to war or conflict. For democratic peace theorists, the international system should be one in which there is cooperation and mutual benefits of the states are taken into consideration. The theory depends on liberal ideologies of civil liberties, democratic institutions and fairly elected governments and claims that liberal democracies are different from other systems of government as they do not conflict with other democracies due to the very nature of the liberal thinking and the pacifying role that democracy itself plays. According to the theory, the thought process behind democracies abstaining from war is that...
During the 19th century, these principles were increasingly challenged, or they were deprived of their substance beyond representative institutions. So, in many countries, direct-democracy institutions have not been established or implemented since representative elites developed a strong interest in monopolizing power. In addition, pragmatic theories contended that direct democracy could not work under space and time conditions of large modern
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