The state’s democratization

Transitions from authoritarianism to democracy depend on state administration, bureaucratic culture and civil servants’ loyalty to the old regime and their willingness to embrace the process of democratization (Baker 2001). The state’s democratization can also become critical and potentially destructive and violent during transitions accompanied by the break-up of the state, such as in the formerSoviet Union(Mansfield & Snyder 1995).

Democratization of the state requires political changes in power, representation and accountability (O’Donnell 1993: 1355). Democratic elections and the choice of a specific electoral system (proportionate, majority, etc.) thus provide for fundamentally different answers to the question of who has policy decision-making powers and to whom the state and its officials are responsible. These representative changes are directly linked to notions of popular sovereignty, representative government, the democratic accountability of state officials and factional politics of democratic pluralism (Gillespie et al. 1995).

Apart from the electoral system and the support of emerging political parties and pluralistic politics, the state’s form (unitary state, federation, etc.), regime (republic or monarchy), the relationship between the legislative and executive powers and the means of their democratic legitimacy (general election, parliamentary vote of confidence in government, etc.), the limits to majority rule and the role of judiciary – especially constitutional review – need to be addressed as part of the democratic transition.

These institutional designs significantly affect the success of democratization and the post-transitional functionality of the new democratic state. Furthermore, the transition in the state’s functions is as important as institutional and representative structural changes because it addresses the question of what the emerging democratic state should do and what is the realm of its political and social responsibilities, for instance, in the fields of social welfare, market regulation and property ownership, state security, minority policies, etc. Systemic economic, constitutional and legal changes are an intrinsic part of transitions and policy makers have to address fundamental normative questions of legal and social justice (Offe 1996: 105-30).

Civil society and democratic transitions

Nevertheless, transitions are not limited to democratic state-building and constitution-making. The state and legal reforms cannot be promoted by political élites – whether from the outgoing authoritarian leadership or the incoming democratic opposition leaders – and expert communities of lawyers, economists and civil servants alone. State transformation is not just a technical matter of the demilitarization of power and its transfer to the civil government, as seen in many Latin American countries, or the dismantling of the state command economy and its replacement by a free market, as in post-communist countries (May & Milton 2007).

Despite the absence of the direct correlation between the level of wealth and democratization, the state of economy and economic development, civic autonomy and activism, class structure and the rule of law thus turn out to be important elements in democratic transitions, their variations and overall success. For instance, regional economic crises significantly affected political democratizations in countries, such asIndonesiaandMalaysiain the 1990s (Pepinsky 2009). Economic development and social changes in other Asian countries, such as Thailand and South Korea, profoundly influenced democratic transitions and continue to impose limitations on the extent and quality of democratic representation and decision-making processes (Stern 2007: 13-40, Kim 2004).

Furthermore, the varieties of democratic transitions seen in Asia, Latin Americaand post-communist countries show the importance of autonomous civil society networks for political activism and opposition to authoritarian rule. In Chile, public protests against the military regime in the wake of the economic crisis of 1982 eventually resulted in the signing of the National Agreement (the Acuerdo Nacional) of 1985. Furthermore, the tradition of party-state populism associated, for instance, with Argentinian, Brazilian or Peruvian politics is a threat to democracy even in a state in which a general democratic vote regularly takes place and the constitutional system is officially respected and enforced (Mainwaring et al. 1992; Smith 2011).

The importance of civil society and its autonomy are even more obvious in developing and more divided political societies, for instance, in Africa and, most recently, the Arab world where democratization often means building, rather than just reforming, the state (Bratton & Van de Walle 1997; Widener 1994). Similar challenges can also be detected in post-communist democratic transitions in which countries with stronger state and civil society traditions and a higher level of economic development and standard of living have successfully evolved into consolidated democracies, many of them current Member States of the EU (Krygier 1997).

The role of civil society associations and movements in transitions is important because they can provide public accountability and democratic scrutiny of the contingent process of democratization and offer alternative and inclusive opportunities for political participation, while articulating and representing the political interests of diverse groups. Furthermore, these civil society networks can mitigate new political conflicts developing during the process of transition and significantly influence state reforms during this period (Cohen & Arato 1992). Societies with stronger traditions and more developed networks of civil society, therefore, have a better prospect of achieving a successful democratic transition because of their ability both to mobilize the democratic public and to constrain the power of the state.