Adam Przeworski, Michael Alvarez, Jose Antonio Cheibub, and Fernando Limongi. 1996. What Makes Democracies Endure?

Adam Przeworski, Michael Alvarez, Jose Antonio Cheibub, and Fernando Limongi. “What Makes Democracies Endure?” Journal of Democracy 7 (January 1996), 39-55.

If a country, any randomly selected country, is to have a democratic regime next year, what conditions should be present in that country and around the world this year? The answer is: democracy, affluence, growth with moderate inflation, declining inequality, a favorable international climate, and parliamentary institutions. 

The survival of democracies does depend on their institutional systems. Parliamentary regimes last longer than presidential ones. Majority-producing electoral institutions are conducive to the survival of presidential systems; presidential systems facing legislative deadlock are particularly brittle. Both systems are vulnerable to bad economic performance, but presidential democracies are less likely to survive even when the economy grows than are parliamentary systems when the economy declines. Evidence indicate that parliamentary democracy survives longer and under a broader spectrum of conditions than presidential democracy.

There is no evidence that democracies are "consolidated" over time or that at any level of development the mere passage of time makes the demise of democracies less likely. The drop in hazard rates observed over time (uncorrected for the level of development) could just be the result of countries developing economically.

Richard Gunther, P. Nikoforos Diamandouros, and Hans-Jurge Puhle. 1996. O’Donnell’s ‘Illusions’: A Rejoinder

Richard Gunther, P. Nikoforos Diamandouros, and Hans-Jurge Puhle. “O’Donnell’s ‘Illusions’: A Rejoinder.” Journal of Democracy 7 (October 1996), 151-59.

Indicators of democratic consolidation that O'Donnell incorrectly attributes to Gunther Diamandouros, and Puhle (and which they reject outright) are:

1)      Alternation in power between former rivals

2)      Continued widespread support and stability of a regime during times of economic hardship

3)      Successful defeat and punishment of a handful of strategically placed rebels

4)      Regime stability in the face of radical restructuring of the party system

A regime is consolidated only when there is an absence of politically significant antisystem party or social movement.

-          But while the existence of a sizeable antisystem party is a useful indicator of the absense of consolidation, the extent to which a party is or is not antisystem must not be ascertained on the basis of accusations by rival parties, but must be independently confirmed by the analyst on the basis of the antisystem party's official ideological and programmatic declarations, speeches by their elites, or probing interviews with party leaders.

Consolidation is not inherently teleological, as claimed by O'Donnell, but its concept captures an extremely important dimension of the democratization process beyond the creation of democratic institutions and the holding of elections.

-          Attitudinal indicators of consolidation are useful in predicting behavior directly relevant to the stability and long-term survival of democratic regimes.

-          The range of institutions relevant to regime consolidation and long-term stability goes beyond the electoral process.

Particularistic and clientelistic arrangements exist in all democratic systems, but over the long run such practices are antithetical to the quality of democracy and can result in the delegitimation of democracy. Particularism and clientelism are incompatible with the unhindered exercise of suffrage: particularism, because it involves and perpetuates unequal treatment of individuals/groups; clientelism, because it entails systematic and persistent power imbalances within society, polity, and economy. Both breed discontent over exploitative relationships and destabilize regimes.

Guillermo O’Donnell. 1996. Illusions about Consolidation

Guillermo O’Donnell. “Illusions about Consolidation.” Journal of Democracy 7 (April 1996), 34-51.

The purpose of this paper is to furnish some elements of needed revision in the conceptual and comparative agenda for the study of all existing polyarchies, especially those that are informally institutionalized.

Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan. 1996. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation

Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. Chapter 1.

A democratic transition is complete when the following conditions hold:

1)     Sufficient agreement has been reached about political procedures to produce an elected government

2)     A government comes to power that is the direct result of a free and popular vote

3)     This, aforementioned, government de facto has the authority to generate new policies

4)     The executive, legislative and judicial power generated by the new democracy does not have to share power with other bodies de jure.

Democratic consolidation occurs once democracy becomes "the only game in town"--that is, when:

1)     No significant political groups seriously attempt to overthrow the democratic regime or secede from the state.

2)     Even in the face of severe political and economic crises, an overwhelming majority of the people believe that any further political change must emerge from the parameters of democratic formulas.

3)     All the other actors in the polity become habituated to the fact that political conflict will be resolved according to the established norms (specific laws, procedures, and institutions) and that violations of these norms are likely to be both ineffective and costly.

4)     Democracy becomes routinized and deeply internalized in social, institutional, and even psychological life, as well as in calculations for achieving success.

Consolidated democracies break down due to new dynamics in which the regime cannot solve a set of problems; the breakdown is unrelated to weaknesses or problems specific to the historic process of democratic consolidation.

A robust civil society in a democracy guarantees the right of association and has the capacity to generate political alternative to monitor government and state; it helps push democratic transitions to their completion.

Political society crafts the constitution, laws, manages the state apparatus to support the civil society, and produces the overall regulatory framework for economic society.

No consolidated democracy has a purely free market economy or command economy; regulations are necessary to protect the interests of the public, but a purely command economy would deprive the society of the relative autonomy necessary in a consolidated democracy.