Transitions to Democracy in the Post-Cold War Era

Post 1978 democratization presents different theories than we learned in week 5 with respect to pre-cold war era. I found these readings more interesting because the theories were much more complex, which I think more appropriate when explaining many countries at once. For example, Mainwaring et al. attempt to explain how being a richer country would actually be a disadvantage during the transition. Because, at the time, this went against conventional thought, it took a lot more work to invent and prove. They go on to explain other theories such as regional political environments and the non-influential international actors. The majority of the paper I agree with, the part I don’t is there analysis of international actors: “although international actors have developed effective means of combating coups and egregious electoral fraud, international actors are almost powerless to improve the quality of democracy and to avoid erosions in the quality of democracy”.

I think this is backwards, in the sense that international actors fighting coups and electoral fraud is not effective. Using the US, for example, fighting coups always leads to a dangerous retaliation. They tried to help the middle east, and while successfully toppling dictators, further supplied the area with arms that are now terrorizing the entire planet. The Gulf War removed Iraqi forces but led to an even bigger battle that we are still fighting today and the immediate burning of land led by Iraqi forces. I wouldn’t call this “effective means of fighting coups” if they still have enough power to cause so much damage and produce a domino effect of destruction. Furthermore, international actors are “successful” fighting voter fraud when the institutions are already in place, like in Japan.  In places where democracy is brand new and nothing is solidified, international actors do squat when it comes to fighting voter fraud. In Latin America, voter fraud was very much existing post-cold war era. But the US was an international actor involved in democracy on-goings so this should be effective according to Mainwaring and Pérez-Liñán (but it’s not). Just a few examples of how I don’t see the truth in one of the theories. The last part of “improving the quality of democracy” is also subjective since pre-cold war era the quality of democracy was such that anything in the move of democracy was an improvement, so they had power because the marginal difference was huge. In fact, they say themselves, this wave of democracy (the most recent one) is the longest lasting of the waves, and although international actors are not the changing variable, they were just as present post-cold war.

Very interestingly, the next two papers speak heavily on two points presented by Mainwaring et al. The two points being how poor economic conditions are good for democracy and the political environment’s role in democracy. I want to start with Magaloni because she looks at elections specifically and touches on my point above. She says “Democracy, to be stable, must be self-enforcing, meaning that all relevant political players must have an interest in abiding by the election results, even if they lose. The IFE was designed to prevent the PRI from committing electoral fraud, but it would have not been able to force the PRI to step down from office had this party refused to accept defeat peacefully”. She does not think international actors, even if they are meant to, can effectively stop voter fraud. Even if the IFE could stop fraud, they couldn’t force anyone to accept defeat. Here is where it gets confusing, because she agrees with half of the argument presented above (the voter part with me and the international democracy upkeep with Mainwaring). Latin American countries having problems adopting democracy, while they may appear to conducting business democratically, it can only be enforced by international actors so much. In this regard, she agrees with the second part of the above statement taken from Mainwaring (but she states in the paper the powerlessness of international actors on voting fraud and that it very much exists, as shown by the case study). To clarify, I think international actors have more power than Mainwaring et al. and (some parts) of Magaloni are presenting.

Lastly, Wood goes over poorer countries ability to start and keep democratic processes. This I agree with, as do the other authors for this week. The interesting take she has on the issue, is showing how (although foundation lying on the poor economic conditions) the elites’ interests were triggered and the combination of the two led to democracy. I thought that part was very interesting.