Forecasting Stability or Retreat in Emerging Democratic Regimes

Abstract

Drawing on the literatures on elite transitions, factionalism and the new institutionalism, this paper hypothesizes that the stability of partially democratic and emerging democratic regimes is dependent on the willingness of elites to make credible commitments to cooperate and comply with democratic rules. That willingness (or lack thereof) can be signaled by the presence of cooperative or conflict-precipitating events and actions in the periods around elections. We identify and analyze a variety of intra-elite interactions and demonstrate that conflict-precipitating events significantly increase the odds of a democratic retreat in the months before or just after an election, while cooperative events can balance them and prevent retreat. Using event data collected from 40 low-and middle-income countries for two-year periods around national elections between 1991 and 2007 we show that the imbalance of conflict-precipitating over cooperative events is far greater in cases of retreat from democracy. Furthermore, international intervention and pressure had a negative relationship with democratic stability. A logistic regression model accurately identified democratic retreat in 79 percent of the cases examined. Factor analysis revealed several common patterns of intra-elite conflict that can lead to democratic retreat, or conversely, patterns of cooperative events that bolster democratic consolidation. Finally, the data strongly argues for a model of democratic development that depends on open-ended elite maneuvering and the emergence of elite agreements, rather than a model where strong prior institutional constraints determine elite actions.

Demographic growth in dangerous places: Concentrating conflict risks

“…We have seen all too often that elections prompt more conflict and radicalism if there do not exist prior agreements among elites to tolerate opposition, accept election outcomes and respect basic human rights (Dewal et al, 2013;Goldstone et al, 2010;Keefer and Vlaicu, 2008;Mansfield and Snyder, 2002). In states as diverse as Brazil, South Korea, Indonesia, Ukraine and now Tunisia, we have seen that people are willing and able to seize opportunities to move toward democracy and seek to rid themselves of excessively corrupt leaders, once they have achieved a basic level of security.…”