Democratization

"Obama and the ‘Arab Spring’: desire, hope and the manufacture of disappointment. Implications for a transformative pedagogy"

by John Schostak

paper just published with co-author Lorna Roberts. It develops themes and arguments in earlier conference versions available on academia.edu: see: ‘Democracy matters in race matters’: Obama, desire, hope and the manufacture of disappointment.

For a period, in the run up to the election (2007–2008) and the months after the election, the name ‘Obama’ signified... more For a period, in the run up to the election (2007–2008) and the months after the election, the name ‘Obama’ signified hope for millions, not just in America but across the world. As the hope turned to disappointment, the financial crisis deepened and the Arab Spring renewed a call for a ‘humanity’ that could transcend the differences of nations and faiths. What can be learnt from such events about the pedagogies of hope, disappointment and public action? Are there lessons for a transformative pedagogy, an education that could underpin and continuously create the conditions for a politics of freedom and social justice? A range of print, broadcast and digital/Internet news media is analysed to explore the political/rhetorical/pedagogical strategies already set into play that ‘manufacture disappointment’ in order to undermine and negate the transformative, transgressive symbolic significance of ‘Obama’ and thus manage the theme of change to reassert the same.

Between a rock and a hard place - radical Islam in post-Suharto Indonesia

by Felix Heiduk

International Journal of Conflict and Violence, Vol 6, No 1 (2012)

Indonesia provides a fruitful case study of differences between radicalization processes in liberal and authoritarian... more Indonesia provides a fruitful case study of differences between radicalization processes in liberal and authoritarian regimes. Political Science hereby tends to emphasize regime type as the determinant of Islamist political strategy (radical, militant or moderate) and therefore as the main explanatory factor for radicalization processes.

Although this is true of the role of Islamists in various Middle Eastern countries, where electoral participation has moderated political programs and strategies, it is of little relevance to Indonesia. The democratic opening in 1998 provided Islamists with new opportunities to participate in electoral politics, and even become co-opted by formally “secular” forces, but at the same time opened up spaces for militant, radical Islamist groups.

Whereas radical Islam faced severe state repression under Suharto’s New Order, we now find a highly ambiguous relationship between the state and radical Islamists, expressed in operational terms as a parallelism of repression and cooptation. This article tries to make sense of the relationship between the post-authoritarian state and radical Islam in Indonesia by transcending the institution-centered understanding of the role of Islam through an examination of the configurations of social forces that have determined the shape, scope, and practices of radical Islam within Indonesia’s new experiment with democracy.

Blocked Democracies in Central America

by Otto Argueta

SLIDING DOORS OF OPPORTUNITY: ZAPATISTAS AND THEIR CYCLE OF PROTEST

by Maria Inclan

Using a cross-sectional time-series event-count model, this study analyzes the effects of local, national, and... more Using a cross-sectional time-series event-count model, this study analyzes the effects of local, national, and international variables on pro-Zapatista protests across the 111 localities
(municipios) of Chiapas over a ten-year period (1994-2003). Protests were more likely to occur in localities with previous protest activity, a closed political system, and a larger presence of the military. Local and national electoral openings, as well as a larger local and national presence of the Zapatistas’ presumed political ally, the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD), had a negative relationship with protest activity. Specific openings to the Zapatistas also worked as protest depressants. International attention did not show any significant effect on Zapatista protest activity. However, these institutional and specific openings were only ephemeral opportunities in that they did not translate into substantive concessions for the movement. They appear to have decreased the strength of the Zapatista protest cycle, while the international attention to the movement did not show any significant effect on it.

From the ¡Ya Basta! to the Caracoles: Zapatista Mobilization under Transitional Conditions

by Maria Inclan

This study draws on the literature on political opportunity structures to investigate the effects of local and... more This study draws on the literature on political opportunity structures to investigate the effects of local and national factors on the Zapatista cycle of protest from 1994 to 2003. A cross-sectional, time series, negative binomial model for event counts is used to analyze the ebb and flow of Zapatista protests across the 111 municipios of Chiapas during this 10-year period. The results show that while all types of demands appear to have been significant triggers of protest activity, Zapatistas concentrated their protest events in larger and more closed localities that had a history of protest activity, stable elite alignments, and a larger military presence. Openings in the political system at the local and national levels lessened protest activity in the more democratic scenarios. These results suggest that the curvilinear relationship between the structure of political opportunities and protest mobilization posited to explain social movements in well-developed Western democracies does not explain the development of the protest cycle of a new social movement in an emerging electoral democracy.

The convergence of governance. Upgrading authoritarianism in the Arab world and downgrading democracy elsewhere?

by Francesco Cavatorta

Published in: Middle East Critique, Vol. 19, No. 3, 2010, pp. 217–232.

Civil society, Islamism and democratisation: the case of Morocco

by Francesco Cavatorta

Published in: The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 44, No. 2, 2006, pp. 203-222.

The international context of Morocco's stalled democratization

by Francesco Cavatorta

Published in: Democratization, Vol. 12, No. 4, 2005, pp. 549-567.

The EU's democratization agenda in the Mediterranean: a critical inside-out approach

by Francesco Cavatorta

Co-authored with Peter Seeberg and Michelle Pace. Published in: Democratization, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 3-19, 2009.

Constructing an open model of transition: the case of North Africa

by Francesco Cavatorta

Published in: Journal of North African Studies, Vol. 9, No. 2, 2004, pp. 1-18.

Civil Society, Democracy Promotion and Islamism on the Southern Shores of the Mediterranean

by Francesco Cavatorta

Published in: Mediterranean Politics, Vol. 13, No. 1, 2008, pp. 109-119.

Strengthening Authoritarian Rule through Democracy Promotion? Examining the Paradox of the US and EU Security Strategies: The Case of Bin Ali's Tunisia

by Francesco Cavatorta

Co-authored with Vincent Durac. Published in: British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 36, No. 1, 2009, pp. 3-19.

Political Opposition in Civil Society: An Analysis of the Interactions of Secular and Religious Associations in Algeria and Jordan 1

by Francesco Cavatorta

Co-authored with Azzam Elananza. Published in: Government and Opposition, Vol. 43, No. 4, 2008, pp. 561-578.

Bullets over ballots: Islamist groups, the state and electoral violence in Egypt and Morocco

by Francesco Cavatorta

Co-authored with Hendrik Kraetzschmar. Published in: Democratization, Vol. 17, No. 2, 2010, pp. 326-349.

Post-Soviet Political Transformation in Azerbaijan: Political Elite, Civil Society and the Trials of Democratization

by Uluslararası İlişkiler

Ayça Ergun, "Post-Soviet Political Transformation in Azerbaijan: Political Elite, Civil Society and the Trials of Democratization", Uluslararası İlişkiler, Cilt 7, Sayı 26 (Yaz), 2010

Bu makalenin amacı Azerbaycan’da Sovyet sonrası siyasal dönüşüm sürecini demokratikleşme, liderlerin ve siyasal... more Bu makalenin amacı Azerbaycan’da Sovyet sonrası siyasal dönüşüm sürecini demokratikleşme, liderlerin ve siyasal seçkinlerin özellikleri, seçim politikalarında başarı ve başarısızlıklar ve sivil toplum gelişimine odaklanarak incelemektir. Bağımsızlık sonrası dönemde siyasal dönüşüm sürecinin geleceği devamlılık ve değişim unsurlarının çatışan birlikteliği tarafından belirlenmektedir.

The On-Going Struggle for Memory and Democracy in Guatemala

by Michelle Carmody

Authoritarian crises and democratic transitions in Sub-Saharan Africa

by Julien Morency-Laflamme

This research proposes an analysis of transitions from authoritarian rule to democracy (TD). TD has been the subject... more This research proposes an analysis of transitions from authoritarian rule to democracy (TD). TD has been the subject of many researches, in particular since the end of the 1960s. This research attempted to identify the roots of those regime changes. Most researchers agree that TD is initiated by a conflict or crisis which affects the very legitimacy of the regime. These conflicts have been defined differently according to different authors: new versus old elites, civil society versus the authoritarian regime (RA), or between reformers and hardliners within the RA.
In this research, we criticize this consensus among Africanists. By applying the theoretical framework developed by Schmitter and O’Donnell in “Transition from Authoritarian rule” to the Benin, South African and Togo cases, this research will demonstrate the important how pro-reform forces within authoritarian regimes are a key feature of successful transition to democratic in Africa

"La démocratie renversée": Sur l'usage de la "bonne gouvernance" en Égypte et au Maroc: le cas des réformes de l'enseignement supérieur

by Florian Kohstall

published in Michel Camau and Gilles Massardier (ed.), Démocraties et autoritarismes: Fragmentation et hybridation des régimes, Karthala, 2009.

The EU’s Two-Track Promotion of Democracy in its Eastern Neighbourhood: Examining the Case of Armenia

by Nicholas Ross Smith

Asia-Pacific Journal of EU Studies (forthcoming issue)

This paper examines the EU’s effectiveness in promoting democracy in its Eastern Neighbourhood through engaging with... more This paper examines the EU’s effectiveness in promoting democracy in its Eastern Neighbourhood through engaging with the case study of Armenia. In evoking Pridham’s two-track approach to democratization, the EU’s democratic strategy in its European Neighbourhood Policy is evaluated through empirically examining electoral reform (2008 presidential election) and EU interaction with domestic civil society organizations (specifically domestic NGOs)  in Armenia.  Ultimately, it is argued that the EU represents an inefficient agent of democratization through its European Neighbourhood Policy, comparatively to previous neighbourhood strategies which were based on enlargement, where reform is now more modest and the EU’s mechanisms and strategies require modification and reinvigoration.

Ulusaşırı Yandaşlık Ağbağları Perspektifinden Türkiye’de Demokratikleşme, İnsan Hakları ve Sivil Toplum Kuruluşları

by Uluslararası İlişkiler

Bican Şahin, Mete Yıldız, " Ulusaşırı Yandaşlık Ağbağları Perspektifinden Türkiye’de Demokratikleşme, İnsan Hakları ve Sivil Toplum Kuruluşları ", Uluslararası İlişkiler, Cilt 6, Sayı 21 (Bahar), 2009

Bu çalışmanın amacı Türkiye’de demokratikleşme ve insan hakları konularında çalışan ulusal ve uluslararası sivil... more Bu çalışmanın amacı Türkiye’de demokratikleşme ve insan hakları konularında çalışan ulusal ve uluslararası sivil toplum kuruluşlarının işbirliklerini incelemektir. Kullanılan kuramsal çerçeve “ulusaşırı yandaşlık ağbağları” konusundaki literatürdür. Kullanılan iki temel araştırma yöntemi, arşiv analizi ile ulusal ve uluslararası sivil toplum kuruluşlarının temsilcileri ile yapılan yarı-yapılandırılmış derinlemesine mülakatlardır. Çalışmanın bulguları göstermektedir ki, bu sivil toplum kuruluşları birbirleriyle güç, bilgi, deneyim ve maddi kaynak alışverişinde bulunarak ulusaşırı yandaşlık ağbağları yardımıyla içinde bulundukları siyasal ve sosyal çevredeki engelleri aşmaya çalışmaktadırlar.