5
Actors and Contexts
IN ADDITION to our "macrovariables" of prior regime type and stateness,
we call attention to some other important variables that affect democratic transition
and consolidation and that lend themselves to middle range propositions .
Two actor-centered variables concern the leadership base of the prior nondemocratic
regime and the question of who initiates and who controls the transition .
Three context variables relate to international influences, the political economy of
legitimacy and coercion, and constitution-making environments .
THE INSTITUTIONAL COMPOSITION AND LEADERSHIP
OF THE PRECEDING NONDEMOCRATIC REGIME
Our central question here concerns the core group that is in day-by-day control
of the state apparatus. What is the institutional character of this state elite?
Does its character favorably or unfavorably affect democratic transition and consolidation?
The organizational base is necessarily analytically distinct from the
variable of regime type because, within some regime types (especially authoritarian),
there can be dramatically different types of state elites, each with quite different
implications for democratic transition and consolidation . Without being
exhaustive, four different types of state elites can be distinguished: (i) a hierarchical
military, (a) a nonhierarchical military, (3) a civilian elite, and (4) the distinctive
category of sultanistic elites .
Hierarchical Military
As shown in chapter 4 on the consequences of prior nondemocratic regime
types, only an authoritarian regime has the possibility of being controlled by a hierarchical
military organization . Control by such an organization is against the
logics of a totalitarian, post-totalitarian, or sultanistic regime .' All hierarchical
i. In some cases, such as Chile and Uruguay, and especially the "dirty war" in Argentina, the military developed
a definition of the enemy in their national security doctrine that gave to the repression a totalitarian
dimension . See, for example, Alexandra Barahona de Brito, "Truth or Amnesty-Human Rights and
Democratization in Latin America : Uruguay and Chile" (Ph.D. diss., University of Oxford, 1993)- 28-61 .
Actors and Contexts 67
military regimes share one characteristic that is potentially favorable to democratic
transition . The officer corps, taken as a whole, sees itself as a permanent
part of the state apparatus, with enduring interests and permanent functions that
transcend the interests of the government of the day . This means that there is always
the possibility that the hierarchical leaders of the military-as-institution will
come to the decision that the costs of direct involvement in nondemocratic rule
are greater than the costs of extrication. Thus, the reassertion of hierarchical authority
in the name of the military-as-institution is a permanent danger faced by
the military-as-government. Furthermore, as members of a situational elite who
derive their power and status from the existence of a functioning state apparatus,
the military-as-institution have an interest in a stable state, and this requires a
government.z This often means that, if a democratic regime is an available ruling
formula in the polity, the military may decide to solve their internal organizational
problems and their need for a government by devolving the exercise of government
to civilians . Paradoxically but predictably, democratic elections are thus
often part of the extrication strategy of military institutions that feel threatened
by their prominent role in nondemocratic regimes .
We can make parsimonious and much less optimistic statements about hierarchical
military regimes in relation to democratic consolidation . Precisely because
the military (short of their elimination by foreign powers or by revolution) is a
permanent part of the state apparatus and as such has privileged access to coercive
resources, members of the military will be an integral part of the machinery
that the new democratic government has to manage . Theoretically and practically,
therefore, the more the military hierarchy directly manages the state and
their own organization on a day-by-day basis before the transition, the more
salient the issue of the successful democratic management of the military will be
to the task of democratic consolidation . Furthermore, the more hierarchically led
the military, the less they are forced to extricate themselves from a nondemocratic
regime due to internal contradictions, and the weaker the coalition that is forcing
them from office, the more the military will be in a position to negotiate their
withdrawal on terms where they retain nondemocratic prerogatives or impose
very confining conditions on the political processes that lead to democratic consolidation.
More than any of the three other kinds of organizational bases found
in nondemocratic regimes, a hierarchical military possesses the greatest ability to
impose "reserve domains" on the newly elected government, and this by definition
precludes democratic consolidation. This is a particularly acute problem if
z. For a more discursive argument about the analytical and historical utility of the distinction between
military-as-government and military-as-institution, see Stepan, "Paths toward Redemocratization," 75-78,
172-73. For the concept of the military as a "situational elite" with a special relationship to the state, see Alfred
Stepan, "Inclusionary and Exclusionary Military Responses to Radicalism with Special Attention to
Peru," in Seweryn Bialer, ed., Radicalism in the Contemporary Age (Boulder: Westview Press, 1977).3: 221-39,
344-50•
68 Theoretical Overview
the hierarchical military have been involved in widespread human rights violations
and condition their loyalty, as a part of the state apparatus, upon not being
punished by the new democratic government. Such a legacy of human rights violations
presented severe problems for democratic consolidation in Argentina
and Chile.
This is not meant to imply a static situation. Power is always and everywhere
relational. We simply mean that, if a relatively unified, hierarchically led military
has just left the direct exercise of rule, the complex dialectical tasks of democratic
power creation and the reduction of the domains of nondemocratic prerogatives
of the military must become two of the most important tasks for new democratic
leaders.
Nonhierarchical Military
A nonhierarchical, military-led nondemocratic regime, on the other hand,
has some characteristics that make it less of a potential obstacle to democratic
transition and especially democratic consolidation. Concerning democratic
transition, if a nonhierarchically led military-as-government (e.g., of colonels
and majors) enters into difficulties, the incentive for the military-as-institution
to re-establish hierarchy by supporting an extrication coup is even higher than it
would be if the military-as-government were hierarchically led . The fundamental
political and theoretical distinction, however, concerns democratic consolidation.
The chances that the military-as-institution will tolerate punishment
and trials of members of the outgoing nondemocratic government are significantly
greater if the group being punished is not seen to be the military institution
itself, but a group within the military which has violated hierarchical norms .
Likewise, if the colonels have established para-state intelligence operations that
are perceived as threats even to the organizational military, the hierarchical military
is much more likely to acquiesce (or even insist) that their reserve domains
of power be eliminated .
Civilian Leadership
In comparative terms, civilian-led regimes (even mature post-totalitarian
civilian-led regimes in which Communist parties are essential components) will
characteristically have greater institutional, symbolic, and absorptive capacities
than either military or sultanistic leaders to initiate, direct, and manage a democratic
transition . Civilian leaders are often more motivated to initiate and more
capable of negotiating a complicated reform pact than are the military. They often
have more links to society than do military or para-military sultanistic leaders.
Civilians also can see themselves as potential winners and rulers in a future democratic
regime. This option is much less likely for military or sultanistic rulers .
There are, of course, potential problems for full democratic transition and
i
Actors and Contexts 69
consolidation in such civilian-led political change . Civilian-led liberalization may
re-equilibrate the system short of democratic transition or allow groups to win
elections by skillful but nondemocratic means because of their privileged access
to levers of power. When we consider democratic consolidation, however, it seems
to us that the capacity of civilian leaders in a previously nondemocratic regime to
create obstacles to democratic consolidation, such as constitutionally sanctioned
reserve domains of power, is significantly less than that of a military organization .
An exception to the above assertion might seem to be the case of a civilian-led,
nondemocratic regime based on a monopoly party-especially a ruling Communist
Party. Should this kind of organizational base be considered an obstacle to
democratic consolidation comparable to a hierarchical military organization that
has just left power? Some political activists in Eastern Europe feared that a defeated
ruling Communist Party and a defeated ruling hierarchical military were
functional equivalents in terms of their ability to impede the consolidation of democracy.
However, we believe that, in those cases where the Communist Party has
been defeated in free and competitive elections (as in Hungary in í99o), this analogy
is fundamentally misleading on two grounds : (i) organizational relationships
to the state apparatus and (z) incentives. The hierarchical military, unless it has
been militarily defeated and dissolved by the new democratic incumbents, will, as
an organization, withdraw as a unit into the state apparatus where it still has
extensive state missions and state-allocated resources (as in Chile in 1989). A defeated
Communist Party, in contrast, while it may well retain control of many resources
and loyalties that help it compete in later elections, has no comparable institutional
base in the state apparatus, has no continuing claim on new state
resources, and has no continuing state mission . Organizationally, it is a defeated
party out of office and, though it may win open elections in the future (as in Hungary
in 1994) it has less collective resources to impose "reserve domains" than do
the military out of office. Our argument here is restricted only to those cases
where the democratic opposition wins open and contested elections and then assumes
control of the government . However, in some societies, normally close to
the totalitarian pole, with no legacies of liberal or democratic politics, top
nomenklatura figures are able to put on nationalist garb and engage not in democracy
building but ethnocrary building. In such contexts civil society is too
weak to generate a competitive political society and members of the nomenklatura
are able to appropriate power and "legitimate" themselves via elections .
In relation to behavioral incentives, Communists (or ex-Communists) from
the former nomenklatura after defeat in free and contested elections will still occupy
numerous important positions within the state apparatus, especially in state
enterprises . The members of the former nomenklatura through their networks
extending over management, administration, and even security services can assure
themselves a privileged position in the emerging capitalist economy and with
it substantial political influence . However, they normally act for their own indi-
70 Theoretical Overview
vidual self-interest . In most post-Communist countries the former nomenklatura
do not attempt to overthrow or directly challenge the new regime but to profit by
it. In some cases, particularly in the former Soviet Union, this leads to a confusion
between the public and the private and with it considerable room for corruption .
The more the members of the former nomenklatura act as individuals or democratic
state managers, the better their chances of survival as officials . This is particularly
so for managers of state production, trading, and banking enterprises,
who can use their organizational resources profitably to restructure new forms
of recombined public-private property.3 The incentive system for the former
nomenklatura thus has strong individualist or network components, which involve
working for advantages by manipulating the new political context more
than opposing it per se . The incentive system for the military is fundamentally
different. With few exceptions, incentives to the military are collective and derive
from the struggles to retain group prerogatives to avoid collective negative actions,
such as trials. Therefore, unlike the nomenklatura out of office, for the military
out of office there may be significant incentives for acting together in open
contestation against the new democratic government .
Sultanistic Leadership
Last, we should briefly consider what the institutional composition of sultanistic
rule implies for democratic transitions and consolidation . A sultanistic
regime is one in which the ruler personalizes the government and the regime and,
in an uninstitutionalized but erratically pervasive way, penetrates the state, political
society, and civil society. Fused are not only the private and the public, but
also the civilian and the military. Theoretically, it is hard to classify sultanship as
either a military- or a civilian-led regime. Sultanistic regimes present an opportunity
for democratic transition because, should the ruler (and his or her family)
be overthrown or assassinated, the sultanistic regime collapses . However, the very
nature of a sultanistic regime means that there is very little space for the organization
of a democratic opposition. Therefore, short of death by natural causes,
sultanistic dictators are characteristically overthrown by quick, massive movements
of civil society, by assassination, or by armed revolt (see table 4.a). This
manner of regime termination often leads to the dynamics of a provisional government
which, unless there is a decision to hold rapid elections, normally presents
dangers for democratic consolidation .4 Also, the very personalization of
power around the dictator may allow close associates of the regime to assume
power. Or, even when the group or armed movement leading the revolt eliminates
3. Pioneering work on new network formation and the associated phenomenon of "recombinant property"
that is not really private and no longer public is being done by David Stark, "Recombinant Property
in East European Capitalism," Working Paper, Collegium Budapest, 1994 .
4. We will discuss interim governments in our analysis of the next variable.
Actors and Contexts
those most associated with the sultanistic regime, they may appoint themselves as
the "sovereign" representatives of the people and rule in the name of democracy
without passing through the free contestation and free election phases that are
necessary for full democratic transition and consolidation .
TRANSITION INITIATION : WHO STARTS AND WHO CONTROLS?
Transitions initiated by an uprising of civil society, by the sudden collapse of
the nondemocratic regime, by an armed revolution, or by a nonhierarchically led
military coup all tend toward situations in which the instruments of rule will be
assumed by an interim or provisional governments Transitions initiated by hierarchical
state-led or regime-led forces do not .
Interim governments are highly fluid situations and can lead to diametrically
opposite outcomes depending on which groups are most powerful, and especially
on whether elections or sweeping decree reforms are considered to be the first priority.
If the interim government quickly sets a date for elections and rules as a relatively
neutral caretaker for these elections, this can be a very rapid and efficacious
route toward a democratic transition . However, if the interim government
claims that its actions in overthrowing the government give it a legitimate mandate
to make fundamental changes that it defines as preconditions to democratic
elections, the interim government can set into motion a dangerous dynamic in
which the democratic transition is put at peril, even including the postponement
of elections sine die.
Elections are crucial because without them there is no easy way to evaluate
whether the interim government is or is not actually representing the majority.
Without elections, actors who did not play a central role in eliminating the old
regime will find it very difficult to emerge and assert that they have a democratic
mandate. And without elections the full array of institutions that constitute a new
democratic political society-such as legislatures, constituent assemblies, and
competitive political parties-simply cannot develop sufficient autonomy, legality,
and legitimacy.
Elections are most likely to be held quickly in cases of collapse where democratic
party leaders (as in Greece in 1974) almost immediately emerge as the core
of the interim government or where leaders of civil society who are committed to
creating a political democracy as the first order of business (as in Czechoslovakia
in 1989) are the core of the interim government. Frequently, however, especially in
cases where armed force has brought them into power, interim governments develop
a dynamic that moves them away from fully free contestation . Claiming
5. For a more detailed discussion of interim governments, see Yossi Shain and Juan J. Linz, eds ., Between
States: Interim Governments and Democratic Transitions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
71
72
	
Theoretical Overview
revolutionary legitimacy, the provisional government may substitute occasional
plebiscites or referenda for multiparty elections . A provisional government that
begins with a nonhierarchical coup may open up an explosive situation because
it may involve part of the state apparatus attacking another part of the state apparatus,
in which outcomes can vary from massive state repression to revolution .
The least likely outcome in such a conflict is procedural democracy.
What can we say about state-led or regime-initiated and regime-controlled
transitions? For one thing the potential for the emergence of an interim government
is virtually absent when the regime controls the transfer of government
until elections decide who should govern. This fundamental point made, we need
to be aware that regime-controlled transfers can be placed along a continuum
ranging from democratically disloyal to loyal . A democratically disloyal transfer
is one in which, for whatever reasons, the outgoing regime attempts to put strong
constraints on the incoming, democratically elected government by placing supporters
of the nondemocratic regime in key state positions and by successfully insisting
on the retention of many nondemocratic features in the new political system.
A disloyal transfer is most likely to happen when the leaders of the outgoing
nondemocratic regime are reluctant to transfer power to democratic institutions
and the correlation of forces between the nondemocratic regime and the democratic
opposition is one where the nondemocratic leaders retain substantial coercive
and political resources . For reasons we have already discussed, this is most
likely to happen if the prior nondemocratic government was a hierarchically controlled
military regime with strong allies in civil and political society, as we shall
see in the case of Chile.
INTERNATIONAL INFLUENCE
The most influential and widely read publication on democratic transitions is
the four-volume work edited by Guillermo O'Donnell, Philippe C . Schmitter, and
Laurence Whitehead, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule. The cases in this study
all concerned Southern Europe and Latin America and, with the exception of
Italy, the decade of the mid-197os to the mid-198os. Generalizing from the experiences
within these spatial and temporal confines, O'Donnell and Schmitter in
the concluding volume argue that "domestic factors play a predominant role in
the transition. More precisely, we assert that there is no transition whose beginning
is not the consequence-direct or indirect-of important divisions within
the authoritarian regime itself."6 Laurence Whitehead, in his valuable chapter on
6. Guillermo O'Donnell and Philippe C . Schmitter, Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 19 .
Actors and Contexts 73
international influence, offers a more qualified generalization : "In all the peacetime
cases considered here internal forces were of primary importance in determining
the course and outcome of the transition attempt, and international factors
played only a secondary role ."?
However, if one considers the entire world and all major actual (or potential)
cases of democratization in modern times, the analysis of international influences
can be pushed much further and a series of nuanced hypotheses can be advanced .
To do so, we distinguish between the foreign policy, zeitgeist, and diffusion effects .
Foreign Policies
Conceptually, foreign policies can have an influence on domestic contexts in
very different ways. To begin with, there are in fact three categories of situations
in which the use of force in foreign policy actually determines outcomes that relate
to democracy. First, a nondemocratic country can use force to overthrow a
less militarily powerful democracy and either annex or occupy the country or install
a nondemocratic puppet regime (e .g., Germany in Czechoslovakia in 1938) .
Second, a nondemocratic regional hegemon (which can be a single country or a
community of countries acting collectively) can in its "outer empire" use military
force to reverse a successful democratizing revolutionary effort to overthrow a
nondemocratic regime (e.g., Hungary in 1956) or to reverse a liberalizing process
(e.g., Czechoslovakia in 1968) . Third, a democratic country that is a victor in a war
against a nondemocratic regime can occupy the defeated country and initiate a
democratic transition by installation (e.g., Germany and Japan in 1945). However,
although foreign policies can have determinative force in the democratic transition
phase, democratic consolidation in an independent country is ultimately determined
by domestic forces.
Another influence of foreign policy on democratic transition and consolidation
concerns what we might call gate opening to democratic efforts. Formal or informal
empires, largely responding to their own internal and geopolitical needs,
may open a previously closed gate to democratization efforts in subordinate regimes.
Whether there will be a democratic transition or not and whether this will
lead to democratic consolidation or not is predominantly domestically determined
(e.g., most of the British Empire after World War II, the Soviet bloc in Eastern
Europe in 1989) .
7. Laurence Whitehead, "International Aspects of Democratization," in O'Donnell, Schmitter, and
Whitehead, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule : Comparative Perspectives, 4. In the body of the article
Whitehead gives detailed information about how the European Community played a strongly supportive
role in democratic consolidation in southern Europe . In later works, Whitehead, O'Donnell, and Schmitter
correctly acknowledged that international influence played a central role in Eastern Europe . Also see the
two-volume work edited by Abraham E Lowenthal, Exporting Democracy : The United States and Latin
America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, t99í) ; and Geoffrey Pridham, ed ., Securing Democracy:
The International Context of Regime Transition in Southern Europe (London : Routledge,199o).
74 Theoretical Overview
Subversion is another kind of policy effect . Regional hegemons (democratic or
nondemocratic) can play an important contributing, though seldom determinative,
role in helping to subvert a nondemocratic regime (e.g., U.S. foreign policies
toward the Philippines in 1987) or in helping to subvert democracy that is opposing
the hegemon's policy preferences (e.g., U.S foreign policy toward Chile in
1973). A democratic hegemon may also use its geopolitical and economic power
to thwart nondemocratic forces trying to impede a democratic transition process
(e.g., President Carter's role in reversing electoral fraud in the Dominican Republic
in 1978) .
Finally, a regional hegemon may, by a consistent policy package of meaningful
incentives and disincentives, play a major supportive (but not determinative) role
in helping a fledgling democracy in the region complete a democratic transition
and consolidate democracy (e.g., the collective foreign policy of the European
Economic Community [EEC] and especially of West Germany toward Portugal
in 1974)•
Zeitgeist
The concept ofzeitgeist is taken from the German tradition of intellectual history
and refers to the "spirit of the times," We do not believe in any variant of the
"end of history" thesis-the thesis, namely, that one ideology, such as the democratic
ideology, can or will stop human efforts to respond to problems by creating
alternative political visions and ideologies .$ But we do maintain that, when a
country is part of an international ideological community where democracy is
only one of many strongly contested ideologies, the chances of transiting to and
consolidating democracy are substantially less than if the spirit of the times is one
where democratic ideologies have no powerful contenders . The effect of a democratically
hostile or a democratically supportive zeitgeist can readily be seen when
we contrast interwar Europe with the Europe of the mid-197os and the 198os . In
interwar Europe, in the aftermath of the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
boundary changes emerging out of the Treaty of Versailles, and various political
experiments, eleven states with little or no prior experience of an independent
democratic regime made some effort to establish democracies .9 However,
the spirit of the times was one in which the democratic ideal competed with four
8. See, for example, Francis Fukuyama, "The End of History," National Interest 16 (Summer 1989): 3-18.
The return to power in Lithuania, Poland, and Hungary of reform communists as social democrats is but
one example of how history can evolve in new and unexpected ways . Another example is the resurgence, in
the name of "democratic majoritarianism," of ethnic nationalist dictatorships in parts of the former Soviet
Union and Yugoslavia.
9. These states were Spain, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria,
Yugoslavia, and Romania. For a discussion of their demise, see Juan J. Linz, "La crisis de las democracias,"
in Mercedes Cabrera, Santos Juliá, and Pablo Martin Aceňa, eds ., Europa en crisis, 1919-1939 (Madrid : Editorial
Pablo Iglesias, 1992),231-80 .
Actors and Contexts 75
other contesting ideologies in Europe, none of them democratic. Communism in
the Soviet Union was a novel experiment that many felt offered great promise .
Fascism in Italy was seen by many others as a powerful contestant to both communism
and democracy. Catholicism, after the papal encyclical, Rerum Novarum,
was the basis of novel forms of corporatist and integralist movements . Finally, in
the midst of this intense ideological struggle, many conservatives still remembered
positively the political formula of a predemocratic, authoritarian constitutional
monarchy, of which Imperial Germany was the esteemed exemplar . All of
Europe was influenced in some degree by these nondemocratic ideas. Latin America
too was strongly influenced by these European intellectual and ideological
currents, as the experience of the Estado Novo under Vargas in Brazil and of Peronism
in Argentina shows .
Though democracy is never "overdetermined," even in the context of the most
supportive zeitgeist, by the late 197os the zeitgeist in southern Europe-indeed in
most of the world (with the important exception of a reinvigorated fundamentalism
in the Islamic cultural community)-was such that there were no major ideological
contestants to democracy as a political system. To be sure, Communism
was entrenched in the Soviet Union and by extension in the subordinate regimes
of Eastern Europe, but the pronouncement by an eminent Polish philosopher that
the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia represented the "clinical death" of
Marxist revisionism in Central and Eastern Europe proved prophetic . 10 By 1977,
the issue of human rights had acquired such pan-European support that most of
the East European regimes became signatories to the Helsinki Accords ." Fascism
and Nazism were thoroughly discredited after World War II, and no longer represented
a pole of attraction. After Vatican II (1961-63) Catholicism developed an
ideological and institutional position more amenable to democracy (if not to capitalism)
than ever before. 12 In the modern era most of the secure and successful
monarchs are now constitutional heads of state in parliamentary democracies . The
Egyptian and Peruvian military option so intriguing in the tgóos had few adherents
in the world by the mid-1970S. On the other hand, the Latin American left's
experience with a new type of modern military-led bureaucratic-authoritarian
regime had contributed to a deep revalorization of democracy, not merely as a tactical
instrument but as a value in itself . 13 The hopes that some democrats had in
Yugoslav worker self-management as a school for democracy have been thorio.
Leszek Kolakowski, Main Currents ofMarxism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978) . 3 : 465•
11 . For the effects on the domestic politics of East European countries and the Soviet Union of having
signed the Helsinki Accords, see Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Twentieth
Century (Norman: Oklahoma University Press, 1991), esp. 85-100 .
12. For Vatican II and how it enhanced the status of democracy in Roman Catholic theology, see George
Weigel, The Final Revolution: The Resistance Church and the Collapse of Communism (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1992), esp. 67-74-
13 . The revalorization of democracy by the left produced a rich new genre of writings . For one such example
see Francisco Weffort, "Why Democracy?" in Alfred Stepan, ed., Democratizing Brazil: Problems of
Transition and Consolidation (New York : Oxford University Press, 1989), 327-50 •
76
	
Theoretical Overview
oughly disappointed . In Africa, "one-party" states by the early s99os had lost almost
all their original credibility as "mobilizing regimes" and were increasingly
disdained as "rent-seeking" formulas exploited by nondemocratic elites .
Diffusion
Zeitgeist in the world of politics refers to historical eras. But the diffusion effect
in an international political community, especially in a community tightly coupled
by culture, coercive systems, and/or communication, can refer to weeks or even
days. Law-like statements about human creations such as democracies are inherently
different from law-like statements in the physical sciences because no two
moments in history can be exactly alike. Human beings reflect upon previous
events and, where the events seem directly relevant to them, often consciously or
unconsciously attempt to adjust their behavior so as to achieve or avoid a comparable
outcome . Political learning is possible . For example, after the Portuguese
revolution had exploded, a Spanish conservative leader, Manuel Fraga, expressed
some interest in playing a role in leading democratic change because he "did not
want to become the Caetano of Spain ."14 Likewise Prince Juan Carlos in Spain
was undoubtedly influenced by the Greek case, where his brother-in-law, King
Constantine, lost his throne due to his ambivalence about democracy .
More generally, we posit that the more tightly coupled a group of countries
are, the more a successful transition in any country in the group will tend to
transform the range of perceived political alternatives for the rest of the group .
Indeed, as we shall see when we examine Central and Eastern Europe in 1989, international
diffusion effects can change elite political expectations, crowd behavior,
and relations of power within the regime almost overnight . For practitioners
and theorists alike, diffusion effects have obviously gained in salience in
the modern world owing to the revolution in communications . Today, the dramatic
collapse of a nondemocratic regime is immediately experienced by virtually
the entire population of the neighboring countries through radio and television.
This experience in turn instantly becomes a powerful new component of
domestic politics.15
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF LEGITIMACY AND OF COERCION
What is the relationship between citizens' perception of the socioeconomic
efficacy of a regime and their perception of the legitimacy of the regime itself?
14. Fraga was referring to the overthrow of the post-Salazar leader of Portugal, Marcello Caetano, who
failed to initiate a transition. The diffusion effect here is that Spanish conservatives rapidly began to recalculate
the costs and benefits of initiating a democratic transition.
15. All countries discussed in this volume experienced some diffusion effects, but none more dramatically
than the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
Actors and Contexts
	
77
How does the economy affect the prospects of a transition away from a nondemocratic
regime? If a transition has begun, how does the economy affect the
chances of democratic consolidation? Are democratic and nondemocratic regimes
equally helped by sustained growth? Are democratic and nondemocratic regimes
equally hurt by economic decline?
We accept the well-documented correlation that there are few democracies at
very low levels of socioeconomic development and that most polities at a high
level of socioeconomic development are democracies .16 Most of the major modern
transition attempts thus take place in countries at medium levels of development.
However, this relationship between development and the probability of democracy
does not tell us much about when, how, and if a transition will take place
and be successfully completed. Indeed, within this critical context of intermediate
levels of development we contend that it is often difficult or impossible to
make systematic statements about the effect of economics on democratization
processes. 17 However, if one uses an analytical framework that combines politics
and economics and focuses on legitimacy, one can make much more meaningful
statements. Certainly for transition theory, economic trends in themselves are less
important than is the perception of alternatives, system blame, and the legitimacy
beliefs of significant segments of the population or major institutional actors .
Why?
For theoreticians and practitioners who posit a tightly coupled relationship
between the economy and regime stability, robust economic conditions would
appear supportive of any type of regime. We would argue, however, that the
proposition is theoretically and empirically indefensible . We see good theoretical
reasons why sustained economic growth could erode a nondemocratic regime.
We see no theoretical reason why sustained economic growth would erode a democratic
regime . Regime type can make a great difference. From the perspective of
political economy, we absolutely cannot formulate any valid propositions that
take the form, "under conditions of great economic prosperity there will be no incentives
for a transition from a nondemocratic to democratic regime ." This is so
precisely because many nondemocratic regimes, especially those of the statistical
16. The classic initial formulation of this argument was Seymour Martin Lipset, "Some Social Requisites
of Democracy : Economic Development and Political Legitimacy," American Political Science Review
(March 1959): 69-105 . Larry Diamond reviewed three decades of literature relevant to the development/democracy
debate and concluded that the evidence broadly supports the Lipset theory. See Diamond, "Economic
Development and Democracy Reconsidered," in Gary Marks and Larry Diamond, eds., Reexamining
Democracy (Newbury Park: Sage, 1992), 93-139.
17. The specific relationship between economic growth or economic crisis and the initiation of a transition
out of a nondemocratic regime has been the object of considerable debate. José Maria Maravall, in
an outstanding and well-researched work, has analyzed this problem in great detail, with particular reference
to southern and Eastern Europe. We find that his analysis converges with our brief analysis, which we
had written independently. We are happy to refer the reader to his book for the relevant evidence. See José
Maria Maravall, Los resultados de la democracia : Un estudio del sur y el este de Europa (Madrid: Alianza
Editorial, 1995).
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Theoretical Overview
mode, authoritarian regimes, are originally defended by the state elite and their
core socioeconomic allies as necessary given the exceptional difficulties (often
economic) the polity faces . Thus, prolonged economic prosperity, especially in an
authoritarian regime, may erode the basis of the regime's justification based on
exceptional circumstances. Prolonged economic success can contribute to the
perception that the exceptional coercive measures of the nondemocratic regime
are no longer necessary and may possibly erode the soundness of the new economic
prosperity.
Prolonged economic growth may also contribute to social changes that raise
the cost of repression and thus indirectly facilitate a transition to democracy . Prolonged
economic expansion normally contributes to the growth of a middle class ;
a more important and needed skilled labor force ; an expansion of education ;
greater contacts with other societies via television, radio, and travel ; and a more
diverse range of possible protests . There is even strong evidence to indicate that,
within a territory, increases in regional wealth increase citizens' expectations that
they should be well treated by the police . 18
Empirically, there are a number of cases where sustained prosperity altered relations
of power in favor of democratic forces. In fact, three cases in our study,
Pinochet's Chile, Brazil in the early 197os, and Franco's Spain in its last twenty
years (as well as South Korea), had some of the world's highest rates of economic
growth. Spain's growth contributed to the belief of some of the core constituents
of the authoritarian regime and among the industrial elite that they could manage
equally well in the future in a more democratic environment . The times had
changed and so did the regime. 19 In Brazil, the soft-line military wing announced
its liberalization program in September 1973, after five years of unprecedented
growth and before the oil crisis, soaring interest rates, and its attendant debt crisis.
In September 1973 the military felt that the economy was in excellent condition
and no significant political threat existed . In the absence of the "exceptional
circumstances" that had legitimated their coup in their own eyes, they came to believe
that continued authoritarian rule not only was not necessary but might contribute
to the autonomy of the security forces and the "Argentinization of
Brazil."20 In Chile many of the key industrialists who had believed that Pinochet
18. For example, seven occupational groups in Franco's Spain, ranging from manual laborers to those
in liberal professions, were asked if they expected "equal," "better," or "worse" treatment by the police than
other citizens . The data were broken down according to the level of economic development of the respondents'
place of residence. In 19 of 21 of the possible comparisons, the greater the regional economic development,
the greater the expectation of equal treatment by the police . See Juan J. Linz, "Ecological Analysis
and Survey Research," in Mattei Dogan and Stein Rokkan, eds ., Quantitative Ecological Analysis in the Social
Sciences (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1969), 91-131, esp. table 1, p. 113 .
i9• As Adolfo Suárez said before he became prime minister of Spain, "Our people who at the beginning
of his (Franco's) government had asked simply for bread, today ask for quality consumption, and in the
same fashion, whereas at the beginning they wanted order, today they ask for freedom-freedom of political
association." Speech in the Cortes on June 9, 1976.
20. Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics, 32-33.
Actors and Contexts
	
79
was indispensable in í98o, by 1988 had come to believe that the risk of fair elections
to the economic model was less than the risk of supporting Pinochet in unfair
elections.21 In all three cases, the political economy of prosperity contributed
to new perceptions about alternative futures and to lessening resistance to democratic
alternatives .
In sharp contrast, when we consider democratizing regimes or consolidated
democracies, there are no theoretical reasons or empirical evidence to support an
argument that economic growth contributes to regime erosion . Of course, a "revolution
of rising expectations" may create new demands on democratic governments,
but it cannot attack their raison d'etre. Indeed, if a regime is based on
the double legitimacy of democratic procedures and socioeconomic efficacy, the
chances of a fundamental regime alternative (given the absence of a "stateness"
problem) being raised by a significant group in society is empirically negligible.
Severe economic problems affect democratic and nondemocratic regimes, especially
authoritarian ones, very differently. There are good theoretical reasons
why sharp economic decline (say five years of continuous negative growth) will
adversely affect stability in both democratic and nondemocratic regimes, but it
will affect the latter substantially more . Modern nondemocratic (especially authoritarian)
regimes are often heavily dependent on their performance claims but
are not bolstered by procedural claims deriving from their democratic status .
Theory leads us to posit therefore that a democratic regime has two valuable
sources of insulation from sustained economic downturn not available to a nondemocratic
regime : its claim to legitimacy based on its origin and the fact that
elections are always on the horizon and hold the prospect of producing an alternative
socioeconomic program and an alternative government without a regime
change. This means that most new democracies have about eight years of breathing
space-four years or so for the initial government and four years or so for an
alternative government .
This theory-based assumption gains strong empirical support from data compiled
by Fernando Limongi and Adam Przeworski . In their study of South America
between 1945 and 1988, they found that the probability that a nondemocratic
regime would survive three consecutive years of negative growth was 33 percent,
whereas the probability that a democratic regime would survive three years of negative
growth was 73 percent. More dramatically, their data show that no nondemocratic
regime survived more than three years of consecutive negative growth,
whereas the probability that a democratic regime would survive four or five years
of consecutive negative growth was 57 percent and 50 percent respectively.22
Let us return to our argument concerning economics and the politics of alter-
21 . See the interview with one of the leaders of a major business interest group in Chile, in Alfred
Stepan, "The Last Days of Pinochet?" New York Review of Books (June 2,1988) : 33•
22. Fernando Limongi and Adam Przeworski, "Democracy and Development in South America,
1945-1988" (University of Chicago, October 27,1993, unpublished manuscript) .
8 0 Theoretical Overview
natives and system blame in nondemocracies and in democracies . If the political
situation is such that there is no strong perception of a possible alternative, a nondemocratic
regime can often continue to rule by coercion . However, when the belief
grows that other alternatives are possible (as well as preferable), the political
economy of legitimacy and coercion changes sharply. If the coercive capacity of
the nondemocratic regime decreases (due say to internal dissent or the withdrawal
of vital external guarantees), then the political economy of prolonged
stagnation can contribute to the erosion of the regime. It is not changes in the
economy, but changes in politics, that trigger regime erosion-that is, the effects
of a poor economy often have to be mediated by political change .
The question of system blame is also crucial for the fate of democracies . As we
have discussed elsewhere, the economic crisis of interwar Europe was as intense
in countries such as the Netherlands and Norway (which did not break down)
as in Germany and Austria (which did break down) . Indeed, 30,000 Dutch workers
in 1936 went to work in Germany because the Dutch economy was in worse
condition than the German economy . What made the crisis of the economy a crisis
of the political system in Germany and Austria was that strong groups on the
right and the left had regime alternatives in mind and thus attacked the regime.
Politically motivated system blame, more than the economic crisis per se, caused
the German and Austrian breakdowns.23
The key question for the democracies is whether their citizens believe that, in
the circumstances, the democratic government is a doing a credible job in trying
to overcome economic problems . It is important to stress that the political economy
of legitimacy will produce severe and perhaps insoluble challenges to democratic
consolidation in those cases where the democratic system itselfis judged
to be incapable of producing a program to overcome the economic crisis .
To summarize, what can and cannot we say about transition theory and the
political economy of legitimacy? Theory and the Limongi-Przeworski data indicate
that consecutive years of negative growth lessen the chance of either a nondemocratic
or a democratic regime's surviving . Thus, a country that is experiencing
positive growth, other things being equal, has a better chance to
consolidate democracy than a country that is experiencing negative growth. This
said, the theory and the data also indicate that a democratic regime has more insulation
from economic difficulty than does a nondemocratic regime . The ques-
23. For a more detailed development of this argument with supporting data, see Juan J . Linz and Alfred
Stepan, "Political Crafting of Democratic Consolidation or Destruction
: European and South American
Comparisons," in Robert A . Pastor, ed ., Democracy in the Americas: Stopping the Pendulum (New York:Holmes and Meyer, 1989), 41-61 . We are indebted to Ekkart Zimmerman for his pioneering studies of interwar
Europe
. See Zimmerman, "Government Stability in Six European Countries during the World Economic
Crisis of the 1930s: Some Preliminary Considerations," European Journal of Political Research is, no.1 (1987) : 23-52 and Zimmerman, "Economic and Political Reactions to the World Economic Crises of the
193os:
Six European Countries," paper presented for the Mid-West Political Science Association Convention,
Chicago, April 10-12,1986 .
Actors and Contexts
	
81
tion of whether an aspiring democracy can withstand economic difficulties, as the
German-Dutch comparison showed, depends to a great extent on the degree of
noneconomic system blame and mass-elite perceptions about the desirability of
other political alternatives . The question is thus one of relationships . It is theoretically
possible, and indeed has occurred, that a newly democratizing regime
suffers a decline in citizen perceptions of democracy's socioeconomic efficacy at
the same timethat their belief that "democracy is the best possible political system
for a country like ours" increases.24
In those cases, however, where the citizens come to believe that the democratic
system itself is compounding the economic problem or is incapable of defining
and implementing a credible strategy of economic reform, system blame will
greatly aggravate the political effect of economic hard times . More importantly,
economic crises will tend to lead to democratic breakdown in those cases where
powerful groups outside or-more fatally-inside the government increasingly
argue that nondemocratic alternatives of rule are the only solution to the economic
crisis.
In a situation where the crisis is permanent, after at least one democratic alternation
of government, and where a reasonable argument can be made that the
democratic political actors are incapable or unwilling to search for solutions and
even compound the problems by such actions as infighting and corruption, key
actors will search for alternatives . But alternatives might not be available . Key actors'
previous experience with alternatives might have been equally or more unattractive.
In such circumstances, many of these actors might resign themselves to
a poorly performing democracy . Such resignation may not prevent crises, upheavals,
and attempted local coups but is not conducive to regime change . But it
certainly makes consolidation difficult and can even deconsolidate a democracy .
CONSTITUTION-MAKING ENVIRONMENTS
A neglected aspect of democratic transition and consolidation concerns the
comparative analysis of the contexts in which constitutional formulas are
adopted or retained . Without attempting to review all possible variations, let us
simply mention six very different possible constitution-making contexts and/or
formulas and indicate what problems they present for democratic transition and
democratic consolidation. We move from those contexts and formulas that pre-
24 . In Linz and Stepan, "Political Crafting of Democratic Consolidation or Destruction," 44, we note
that, during a period (1978-1981) of rising unemployment, inflation, recession, and terrorism the Spanish
citizen's belief in the efficacy of democracy declined by 25 percentage points in national polls while the belief
that democracy was the best political system for a country like Spain increased by 5 percentage points
in the same period . The key implication is that the citizenry did not believe, despite the economic problems,
that any alternative political system was preferable .
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Theoretical Overview
sent the most confining conditions for democratic consolidation in an existing
state to those that present the least .25
i. The retention of a constitution created by an nondemocratic regime with
reserve domains and difficult amendment procedures . These confining conditions
may be the price the outgoing nondemocratic regime is able to extract for
yielding formal control of the state apparatus . However, if this constitution de jure
enshrines nondemocratic "reserve domains" insisted upon by the outgoing nondemocratic
power-holders, then the transition by our definition cannot be completed
until these powers are removed . If the constitution has very difficult
amendment procedures this will further complicate the process of democratic
transition and consolidation . In this book Chile is the clearest case .
2. The retention of a "paper" constitution which has unexpected destabilizing
and paralyzing consequences when used under more electorally competitive conditions.
Some nondemocratic constitutions may enshrine a very elaborate set of
decision-rules, procedures, and rights that had no effect on the operation of the
nondemocratic regime because the constitution was a fiction . However, in more
electorally competitive circumstances, this constitution can take on a life of its own
that may make it almost impossible to arrive at democratically binding decisions.
In such cases, the constitution can help destroy the state and should be changed extremely
quickly before its perverse consequences have this paralyzing effect . The
most important instances of this type of constitution are found in the Soviet-type,
federal constitutions in the former USSR, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia .
3. The creation by a provisional government of a constitution with some de
jure nondemocratic powers . Even when the old nondemocratic regime is destroyed
and many new policies are passed, a democratic transition itself cannot
be completed unless the nondemocratic components of the constitution crafted
by the provisional government are eliminated, as we shall see in the case of Portugal.
Even when these nondemocratic clauses are eliminated, the origin of the
constitution in a provisional government may hurt democratic consolidation because
of its inappropriateness or weak societal acceptance .
4. The use of constitution created under highly constraining circumstances
reflecting the de facto power of nondemocratic institutions and forces . Such a
constitution may be formally democratic and thus consistent with a transition
25. Some indispensable sources on constitutions and democracy are Jon Elster and Rune Slagstad, eds .,
Constitutionalism and Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) ; Douglas Greenberg,
Stanley N. Katz, Melanie Beth Oliveira, and Steven C. Wheatly, eds., Constitutionalism and Democracy:
Transitions in the Contemporary World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) ; Bruce Ackerman, The
Future of Liberal Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992) ; A. E. Dick Howard, ed ., Constitution
Making in Eastern Europe (Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1993) ; and the East European Constitutional
Review, published quarterly since 1992 by the Center for the Study of Constitutionalism in Eastern
Europe at the University of Chicago Law School in partnership with the Central European University.
Actors and Contexts
	
83
being completed, but democratic consolidation may be hampered because a constrained
constituent assembly, while believing that other institutional arrangements
are more appropriate for the creation and consolidation of democratic
politics, may be de facto prevented from selecting them . To some extent Brazil is
such a example.
5 . The restoration of a previous democratic constitution. This formula precludes
a potentially divisive debate about constitutional alternatives and is often
selected by redemocratizing polities for reasons of speed, conflict avoidance, and
the desire to call upon some legacies of historic legitimacy . It should be pointed
out, however, that simple restoration presents two potential problems for democratic
consolidation . First, when the polity has undergone great changes during
the authoritarian interlude, it is possible that a new constitutional arrangement
would in fact be more appropriate for democratic consolidation . Second, restoration
also assumes that the political procedures and institutions of the old constitution
have played no role whatsoever in the democratic breakdown . When the
old democratic arrangements have in fact contributed to democratic breakdown,
restoration precludes an historic opportunity to construct new and improved
arrangements with different procedures and symbols. Uruguay and Argentina are
cases worth analyzing from this perspective .
6. Free and consensual constitution-making. This occurs when democratically
elected representatives come together to deliberate freely and to forge the
new constitutional arrangements they consider most appropriate for the consolidation
of democracy in their polity. The constituent assembly ideally should
avoid a partisan constitution approved only by a "temporary majority" that leads
a large minority to put constitutional revisions on the agenda, thereby making
consolidation of democratic institutions more difficult . The optimal formula is
one in which decisions about issues of potentially great divisiveness and intensity
are arrived at in a consensual rather than a majoritarian manner and in which the
work of the constituent assembly gains further legitimacy by being approved in a
popular referendum that sets the democratic context in which further changes,
such as devolution (if these are to be considered), take place .26 In this book only
Spain fits this pattern.
In the rest of this book we examine how the interplay of our arenas, such as political
society, rule of law, and economic society, and our variables, such as regime
type, stateness, and those discussed in this chapter, affected the processes of transition
to democracy and the consolidation of democracy in three different sociopolitical
(and geographic) regions of the world-southern Europe, the Southern
Core of Latin America, and post-Communist Europe.
26. For an argument in favor of consensual constitutions produced and ratified by nationwide debates,
see Ackerman, The Future of Liberal Revolution, 46-68.