Transitional Political Systems

A transition is an interval between two regimes. Many political systems enter into a transition because their old regime, that is, their rules, procedures, and institutions, has become untenable, and they remain in the transition because no new regime succeeds in becoming consolidated. In the early twenty-first century political scientists became especially interested in the different patterns, forms, and outcomes of transitions from totalitarian and authoritarian regimes to democratic regimes. However, the various transitions do not always result in democratic regimes. Quite often a transition proceeds from one type of authoritarian regime to a different type of authoritarianism. When a transition is heading toward the inauguration of a democratic regime, the overall process is defined as democratization . It should be made clear, though, that not all democratizations give birth to democratic consolidation, that is, to regimes that can be considered both democratic and stable. Only democratic regimes in which the overall political and institutional rules of the game are not challenged except by a tiny minority should be considered consolidated. Finally, transitions from authoritarianism end in consolidated democratic regimes exclusively when democracy appears to most political actors to be "the only game in town." It then will not be the democratic framework as such that becomes the object to be challenged, but the performance of the democratic authorities.

the waves of democratization

Not only is democracy a concept born in Western political thought, for a long time it has also been a Western practice confined to Western political systems. In a broad and convincing comparative-historical perspective Samuel P. Huntington (1991) has argued that the world of political systems has gone through three specific waves of democratization and two reverse waves. The first long wave of democratization (1828–1926) appeared on both sides of the Atlantic and involved thirty-three countries. It was fundamentally the product of three factors: (1) the recognition of religious and political dissent; (2) the gradual expansion of suffrage and the organization of associations; (3) the promotion and protection of civil and political rights. It was enhanced by the possibility of absorbing all these changes over a rather long period of time and by a significant degree of socioeconomic growth. The first reverse wave (1922–1942) reduced the number of democracies to eleven. It affected democratic regimes that had not succeeded in consolidating and had remained fragile and illegitimate in the eyes of many political actors. It was largely the consequence of the disruption produced by World War I (1914–1918), the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia (1917), and the fascist and Nazi movements in Europe (starting in the 1930s). In those twenty turbulent years between two world wars all democracies encountered many difficulties and had to struggle in a very dangerous world in which authoritarian and totalitarian regimes seemed to expand and thrive and few democracies, essentially the oldest ones, survived.

The second wave of democratization (1943–1962) was for the most part a consequence of the Allied victory in World War II (1939–1945). Some democratic regimes were reinstalled, as in Italy, Austria, Germany, and several Latin American countries; others were newly created, as in Japan. The second wave increased the number of democratic regimes to fifty-one. However, in the second postwar period not only did the entire area of Central and Eastern Europe fall under the control of Soviet communism , but major communist expansion took place in Asia, with communist regimes assuming power in China, North Korea, and, later, Vietnam. The second reverse wave occurred between 1958 and 1975, and it affected practically all Latin American democratic regimes, with the exception of Colombia and Venezuela, reducing the number of surviving democracies to twenty-nine. The Cold War and the real or manipulated fear of communism played a significant role in most cases of military intervention and military rule. The third wave of democratization started in Southern Europe in 1974. It was responsible, first, for the return of Portugal, Greece, and Spain to democracy, and then, after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, for the inauguration of democratic regimes in most Central and Eastern European communist countries. The third wave traveled well beyond Western boundaries; it affected such distant countries as South Korea, the Republic of South Africa, and Taiwan and attained the highest recorded number of democratic regimes: sixty-two.

According to Huntington, five factors accounted for the third wave of democratization:

1. The deepening legitimacy problems of authoritarian systems
2. The unprecedented global socioeconomic growth of the 1960s
3. The striking changes in the doctrine and activities of the Catholic Church
4. Changes in the policies of external actors, namely, European Community support for Southern European democratic reformers and the disengagement of Mikhail Gorbachev (b. 1931) from Central and Eastern European communist regimes
5. The impact of public dissent and its aftereffects in society. In the early twenty-first century it was hazardous to try to forecast whether a third reverse wave was in the making. In general, an overall reverse wave seems unlikely, although many countries—among them, for instance, Nigeria—continue to slip in and out of democracy. However, one also wonders whether the expansion of democracy may have reached, at least for the time being, its outer limits.

More precisely, there are three geographic areas where democracy faces extremely serious difficulties of penetration: sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and several areas of Asia, especially China. Most of Africa cannot even be defined as having regimes that are on the verge of a transition. In fact, a host of more or less bland authoritarian regimes dominates all African political systems, with a few exceptions. Such political systems do not have the socioeconomic conditions necessary to create the preconditions for a transition to democracy. That is, the level of education is neither good nor diffused enough to guarantee the existence of politically knowledgeable and active citizens, and the lack of economic growth prevents the development of social groups willing to promote and sustain any transition to democracy. Moreover, in too many cases the various political communities are not defined precisely and continue to be challenged by a plurality of ethnic allegiances that are not conducive to any politics of compromise. Although unstable and often repressive and predatory, some African authoritarian rulers appear to constitute a temporary solution to the problem of political order. The only democracy, a besieged one, in the Middle East is Israel. All the other countries in that region are traditional monarchies, sultanates , authoritarian regimes, or even, as in Iran, theocracies. Most of them share with the rest of the Muslim world a very important, if not decisive, role attributed to the Muslim clergy, the ulamas, Muslim religious schools, the madrassas, and their interpretation of the Qur'an.

In some cases nondemocratic actors, a single party, or a military organization provides the only barrier against religious fundamentalism . The regimes these groups create and buttress are almost inevitably authoritarian. Unless a clear dividing line is drawn between the sphere of religion and the sphere of politics, democratization of the Muslim world is bound to remain practically impossible. Most transitions will open up more political opportunities for the fundamentalists and not for the modernizers, and even less for democratic reformers. The Asian version of communism is the only nonreligious political obstacle to the democratization of several countries on that continent. Some believe that socioeconomic growth inevitably will lead Asian countries, more specifically China, to a transition to democratic regimes. Once the Asian population has obtained a decent level of education, acquired a significant per capita income, moved into urban areas, and been exposed to mass communication, the pressures for democratization will have to be accommodated. However, although affluent and with a highly educated population, Singapore remains an example of a stable authoritarian situation.

There are also those who believe that the democratic process is essentially the product of an agreement and a compromise among elites who have learned the cost of confrontation, both to them and to the political system in general. This means that even in a country having successfully undergone socioeconomic development, if the elites remain cohesive and nondemocratic, no transition will take place. So far this seems to be the case in communist China. On the opposite side of the spectrum cohesive, although electorally competitive, elites may succeed in maintaining a democratic framework and democratic institutions against all socioeconomic odds, as in contemporary India. Huntington has summarized the essence of the controversy on the origins and survival of democratic regimes: "Economic development makes democracy possible; political leadership makes it real" (Huntington 1991, p. 316). Adam Przeworski and colleagues have offered a different perspective, according to which democracy may emerge at any stage but "poor" democracies die more frequently.

patterns of transition and consolidation

A full understanding of transitional processes must be based on knowledge of the regime challenged by liberalizers. Traditional monarchies are destined to lose political power if and when their attempts to modernize are resisted within the royal circle and are not considered sufficiently far-reaching by the mobilized sectors of society that favor modernization . Indeed, traditional monarchies do not seem capable of surviving a political and democratic transition, much less leading one. Totalitarian regimes, especially those founded on the absolute rule and total power of a single party, are bound to collapse if they lose the ability to control their society and to manage their economic system. The collapse of a totalitarian regime opens the way to a complex transition characterized by political disorder because no other organization exists that is capable of obtaining legitimacy and legitimately acquiring and exercising political power. Authoritarian regimes seem better placed when entering into a transition because, by definition, they have retained and been characterized by, as Juan Linz has put it, limited pluralism . The revival of pluralism, transformed into the competitive and responsible variety, allows transitions to democracy that have been, as in the very different cases of Spain (1975–1982) and Poland (1988–1990), easier and more conducive to viable democratic outcomes.

It appears that the decisive variable in all cases of successful transitions is the existence of a plurality of social, economic, and political groups competing in a substantially homogeneous society. Strong and fragmented ethnic, communitarian, and religious identities constitute the most important obstacle not so much for the transition itself but for the very consolidation of the successor regime. Indeed, both in the West and on all the other continents, conflicts based on ethnic, communitarian, and religious affiliations often have proved to be intractable. Hence, they usually lead to bloody wars and to the creation of smaller, more homogeneous, but also somewhat conformist and repressive communities. Whenever those conflicts cannot be solved through interelite, consociational agreements or splits and secessions, the political system will not achieve any consolidation and will remain in a state of tormented transition.

Repeated transitions may, in fact, characterize several political systems in which the conditions for democratization do not materialize. A regime may experience a transition away from authoritarianism but at the same time be unable to institutionalize a democratic outcome, only to find itself in a renewed authoritarian situation. The transition may take place from a bland authoritarian civilian dictatorship to a military regime or from a sultanate to a single-party regime or theocratic arrangement. Most nondemocratic political systems often are unable to sustain their old and authoritarian configuration and find themselves obliged, at least temporarily, to move into a democratic situation. However, in the absence of the rule of law and a sufficient number of committed proponents of democracy, the new, potentially democratic situation becomes untenable as well. Characterized by political disorder and random repression, transitions to and from democracy follow each other frequently, if not periodically. Globalization has created a world environment in which information about the conditions of most political systems is widely available.

Different and competing interpretations of the alternation between authoritarian regimes and democratic experiments exist. Although it may be true that the authoritarians become more skilled in their attempts to over-throw fragile democratic regimes and tighten their rule, it is also true that democracy may be learned through experimentation and adaptation. Democrats will learn from their past mistakes and come to constructive compromises. The population at large will begin to appreciate the benefits of a democratic environment. The comparative lesson seems to be that to become and remain democratic, all political systems in transition must find the necessary resources within themselves.

interim assessment

After almost two centuries of democratic development there are not only more nondemocratic than democratic regimes but also far more individuals living in nondemocratic than democratic countries, although this situation largely results from the extraordinary size of the population in the nondemocratic Republic of China. What is difficult to predict in the early twenty-first century is not the next reverse wave but whether in the short run there will be another wave of transitions to democracy in several other political systems. On the one hand, most existing democracies appear to be sufficiently consolidated not to fear the emergence of a third reverse wave; on the other hand, the expansion of democracy appears to have reached an upper limit. New democracies may make their appearance randomly if and when socioeconomic conditions and the ability of political leaders reinforce each other. Hence, most scholars have become more interested in the quality of existing democracies than the transition to additional democracies. For instance, an important distinction has been drawn between "electoral" democracies and "liberal" democracies.

Elections constitute an indispensable step in the transition to a democratic regime. They must be free, fair, competitive, periodic, and consequential; that is, they must produce political consequences such as the possibility of defeating the incumbents . However, there is a clear distinction between political systems in

which elections are held but electoral campaigns are not free and electoral results are manipulated and regimes in which the rule of law is fully implemented. The latter regimes must be called liberal democracies. In more precise terms liberal democracies require, grant, and protect:

1. Freedom of belief, expression, organization, protest, and other civil liberties
2. Equal treatment of all citizens before the law and due process
3. The political independence and neutrality of the judiciary
4. An open, pluralistic civil society, including a free mass media
5. Civilian control over the military

In too many countries the rulers and institutions of government remain unable or unwilling to protect and promote the rights of their citizens, to maintain the rule of law and abide by it. In these situations free and competitive elections are inherently impossible, and such countries will always be susceptible to crossing the border back to a nondemocratic government. Successful transitions to democratic regimes must be supported through the promotion and protection of individual rights. Much more so than often premature electoral contexts, these rights constitute the solid foundation on which to start a transition and build a lasting democratic regime.

See also: Democracy.

bibliography

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Linz, Juan J., and Alfred Stepan. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation. Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

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Gianfranco Pasquino