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Democratization
Selected AbstractsDEMOCRATIZATION AND FINANCIAL REFORM IN TAIWAN: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF BAD-LOAN CREATIONTHE DEVELOPING ECONOMIES, Issue 3 2002Yukihito SAT This study shows that many bad loans now burdening Taiwan's financial institutions are interrelated with the society's democratization which started in the late 1980s. Democratization made the local factions and business groups more independent from the Kuomintang government. They acquired more political influence than under the authoritarian regime. These changes induced them to manage their owned financial institutions more arbitrarily and to intervene more frequently in the state-affiliated financial institutions. Moreover they interfered in financial reform and compelled the government to allow many more new banks than it had originally planned. As a result the financial system became more competitive and the qualities of loans deteriorated. Some local factions and business groups exacerbated the situation by establishing banks in order to funnel funds to themselves, sometimes illegally. Thus many bad loans were created as the side effect of democratization. [source] Democratization and State Feminism: Gender Politics in Africa and Latin AmericaDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 3 2002Ihejirika, Philomina E. Okeke This article addresses the link between state feminism and democratization in the global South. The authors use the contrasting cases of Chile and Nigeria to show some of the factors that encourage women to exploit the opportunities presented by transitions to democracy, and link the outcome of state feminism to the strategies and discourses available to women during democratization. Based on evidence from the cases analysed, the authors propose that the strategic options available to women are shaped by at least three factors: (1) the existence of a unified women's movement capable of making political demands; (2) existing patterns of gender relations, which influence women's access to arenas of political influence and power; and (3) the content of existing gender ideologies, and whether women can creatively deploy them to further their own interests. State feminism emerged in Chile out of the demands of a broad,based women's movement in a context of democratic transition that provided feminists with access to political institutions. In Nigeria, attempts at creating state feminism have consistently failed due to a political transition from military to civilian rule that has not provided feminists with access to political arenas of influence, and the absence of a powerful women's movement. [source] Precarious Democratization and Local Dynamics in Niger: Micro,Politics in ZinderDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 5 2001Christian Lund Literature on the African state often finds it hard to specify what is state and what is not. The closer one gets to a particular political landscape, the more apparent it becomes that many institutions have something of a twilight character. This article argues that studies of local politics in Africa should focus on how the public authority of institutions waxes and wanes and how political competition among individuals and organizations expresses the notion of state and public authority. This is explored in the context of contemporary political struggles in Niger, played out in three different arenas in the region of Zinder around 1999, as home,town associations, chieftaincies and vigilante groups all take on the mantle of public authority in their dealings with what they consider to be their antithesis, the ,State'. [source] European Union Accession Dynamics and Democratization in Central and Eastern Europe: Past and Future Perspectives1GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 3 2006Geoffrey Pridham EU influence in encouraging and promoting democratic consolidation in Central and Eastern Europe has been extensive, though in a wide rather than deep sense. But, as shown by the enlargement process up to 2004, accession dynamics are the crucial force driving governments in the region to meet the EU's political conditionality. Despite the latter's deficiencies, it has by and large contributed towards democratic consolidation in the new member states notwithstanding some negative aspects of accession. The clear lesson for further enlargement in post-Communist Europe is that EU pressure and promise over integration will be decisive in new candidate states, even though their capacity to achieve the political conditions is more problematic. It follows too that any lessening of EU commitment is likely to undermine democratization efforts there. [source] Standpoint Theory and the Possibility of Justice: A Lyotardian Critique of the Democratization of KnowledgeHYPATIA, Issue 4 2007MARGRET GREBOWICZArticle first published online: 9 JAN 200 Grebowicz argues from the perspective of Jean-François Lyotard's critique of deliberative democracy that the project of democratizing knowledge may bring us closer to terror than to justice. The successful formulation of a critical standpoint requires that we figure the political as itself a contested site, and incorporate this into our theorizing about the role of dissent in the production of knowledges. This essay contrasts Lyotard's notion of the differend with Chantal Mouffe's agonistic model. [source] District health systems in a neoliberal world: a review of five key policy areas,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HEALTH PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT, Issue S1 2003Malcolm Segall Abstract District health systems, comprising primary health care and first referral hospitals, are key to the delivery of basic health services in developing countries. They should be prioritized in resource allocation and in the building of management and service capacity. The relegation in the World Health Report 2000 of primary health care to a ,second generation' reform,to be superseded by third generation reforms with a market orientation,flows from an analysis that is historically flawed and ideologically biased. Primary health care has struggled against economic crisis and adjustment and a neoliberal ideology often averse to its principles. To ascribe failures of primary health care to a weakness in policy design, when the political economy has starved it of resources, is to blame the victim. Improvement in the working and living conditions of health workers is a precondition for the effective delivery of public health services. A multidimensional programme of health worker rehabilitation should be developed as the foundation for health service recovery. District health systems can and should be financed (at least mainly) from public funds. Although in certain situations user fees have improved the quality and increased the utilization of primary care services, direct charges deter health care use by the poor and can result in further impoverishment. Direct user fees should be replaced progressively by increased public finance and, where possible, by prepayment schemes based on principles of social health insurance with public subsidization. Priority setting should be driven mainly by the objective to achieve equity in health and wellbeing outcomes. Cost effectiveness should enter into the selection of treatments for people (productive efficiency), but not into the selection of people for treatment (allocative efficiency). Decentralization is likely to be advantageous in most health systems, although the exact form(s) should be selected with care and implementation should be phased in after adequate preparation. The public health service should usually play the lead provider role in district health systems, but non-government providers can be contracted if needed. There is little or no evidence to support proactive privatization, marketization or provider competition. Democratization of political and popular involvement in health enhances the benefits of decentralization and community participation. Integrated district health systems are the means by which specific health programmes can best be delivered in the context of overall health care needs. International assistance should address communicable disease control priorities in ways that strengthen local health systems and do not undermine them. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria should not repeat the mistakes of the mass compaigns of past decades. In particular, it should not set programme targets that are driven by an international agenda and which are achievable only at the cost of an adverse impact on sustainable health systems. Above all the targets must not retard the development of the district health systems so badly needed by the rural poor. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Exchange Rate Volatility and Democratization in Emerging Market CountriesINTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2003Jude C. Hays We examine some of the consequences of financial globalization for democratization in emerging market economies by focusing on the currency markets of four Asian countries at different stages of democratic development. Using political data of various kinds,including a new events data series,and the Markov regime switching model from empirical macroeconomics, we show that in young and incipient democracies politics continuously causes changes in the probability of experiencing two different currency market equilibria: a high volatility "contagion" regime and a low volatility "fundamentals" regime. The kind of political events that affect currency market equilibration varies cross-nationally depending on the degree to which the polity of a country is democratic and its policymaking transparent. The results help us better gauge how and the extent to which democratization is compatible with financial globalization. [source] War and Peace in Space and Time: The Role of DemocratizationINTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 1 2000Kristian S. Gleditsch Democratization reduces the risk of war, but uneven transitions toward democracy can increase the probability of war. Using country-level data on democratization and international war from the period 1875,1996, we develop a general additive statistical model reassessing this claim in light of temporal and spatial dependence. We also develop a new geopolitical database of contiguities and demonstrate new statistical techniques for probing the extent of spatial clustering and its impact on the relationship between democratization and war. Our findings reaffirm that democratization generally does reduce the risk of war, but that large swings back and forth between democracy and autocracy can increase war proneness. We show that the historical context of peace diminishes the risk of war, while a regional context plagued by conflict greatly magnifies it. [source] Domestic and Transnational Perspectives on DemocratizationINTERNATIONAL STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 3 2004Hans Peter Schmitz The disciplinary separation between comparative politics and international relations is regularly challenged but persists as a result of institutional inertia and hiring practices. This essay uses the issue of democratization in an attempt to go beyond rhetoric and to develop a framework that integrates the role of transnational activism into the analysis of domestic regime change. Comparative research on democratization confirms that underlying socioeconomic conditions affect the long-term sustainability of democratic reforms. The initiation of such reforms, as well as the process they take, can best be understood using an agency-based framework that links domestic and transnational forces. Outside interventions are a potent factor in challenging authoritarian practices, but they do not simply displace existing domestic practices and conditions. Although transnational activists and scholars often celebrate the empowering role of networking and mobilization, the long-term effects of such interventions are still poorly understood. Transnational ties may distract domestic activists from building effective coalitions at home or undermine their legitimacy overall. Transnational scholars and activists can learn from comparative research how different domestic groups use outside interventions to promote their interests at home. [source] International Actors, Democratization and the Rule of Law.JCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 3 2009Anchoring Democracy? No abstract is available for this article. [source] Democratization and Ideational Diffusion: Europe, Mercosur and Social Citizenship,JCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 1 2007JEAN GRUGEL Policies in support of democratic transition aim to reconfigure the dominant norm set in previously authoritarian states and societies. The EU's commitment to such policies is well-established. This article discusses what the EU does when it offers democratic support, using the example of Mercosur. The evidence presented here suggests that EU policy in Mercosur is premised on assumptions of a positive identity relationship with local governing elites. In fact, however, it is not clear that democracy is understood in the same way in Mercosur as in the EU. As a result, policies resonate less than expected. [source] Globalization and Democratization: Institutional Design for Global InstitutionsJOURNAL OF SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, Issue 1 2006Margaret Moore First page of article [source] Conversations with a Polish populist: Tracing hidden histories of globalization, class, and dispossession in postsocialism (and beyond)AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Issue 2 2009DON KALB ABSTRACT Building on the work of Jonathan Friedman and of Andre Gingrich and Marcus Banks, I explain the rise of populist, neonationalist sensibilities in Poland as a set of defensive responses by working-class people to the silences imposed by liberal rule. I trace in detail a sequence of all-around dispossessions experienced by Polish working-class sodalities since 1989, when activists with substantial legitimacy among organized workers had claimed de facto and de jure control over assets crucial for working-class reproduction. "Democratization" and "markets" were shrewd legal ways by which the new liberal capitalist state reappropriated and recentralized those assets from local constituencies. Meanwhile, the reputation of workers, whose fights with the party-state had been essential for regaining national sovereignty and establishing parliamentary democracy, was systematically annihilated in the public sphere by discourses of "internal orientalism."[postsocialism, dispossession, class, neonationalism, populism, neoliberalism, globalization, privatization, Europe] [source] The Struggle between Security and Democracy: An Alternative Explanation of the Democratization of South KoreaPACIFIC FOCUS, Issue 1 2010Dongsoo Kim South Korea experienced democratic reform relatively recently. Before its significant democratic reform in 1987, South Korea had been dominated by a series of authoritarian regimes over a few decades since its liberation from Japanese colonial rule. This study aims to uncover a set of variables that helped the democratic development of South Korea. For that purpose, I will demonstrate that prior to democratization the politics of South Korea were characterized by the struggle between democracy and security, and that the authoritarian leaders were successful in utilizing the unstable international security environment to strengthen their power during those years. I will also show that the favorably changing security environment played a significant role in the process of democratic transition. In so doing, I will argue that consideration of the external security environment is essential in the discussion of democratization. [source] Political Parties in South Korea and Taiwan after Twenty Years of Democratization*PACIFIC FOCUS, Issue 2 2009Heike Hermanns South Korea and Taiwan are often cited as successful cases of third-wave democracies where democracy has taken roots. However, electoral volatility is high and disenchantment among citizens is rising, especially regarding the performance of politicians and political parties. Since political parties play a vital role in the democratic process their institutionalization is seen as an indicator of democratic consolidation. An analysis of Taiwanese and South Korean parties in terms of age, organization and structure, as well as programs and leadership style of parties indicates that parties are weakly institutionalized. The Korean party system is a weak point in democratic deepening, as it is reminiscent of a carousel of party creations, mergers and dissolutions. Parties lack distinguishing ideological or programmatic markers and remain cadre parties, focusing on their charismatic leader and their home regions. In Taiwan, in contrast, a clear cleavage in the form of Taiwanese identity led to the appearance of two distinct political camps, each consisting of several parties. Taiwanese parties have progressed in their institutionalization in terms of longevity, organization and programmatic differences. However, membership numbers and party identification remain low and regular corruption scandals show the slow attitudinal change among Taiwanese politicians. In the light of politicians' behavior, citizens in both countries thus are feeling increasingly disenchanted with the ruling elite as well as the democratic system. [source] How Foreign Aid Can Foster Democratization in Authoritarian RegimesAMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 3 2009Joseph Wright Donors in recent years have made some foreign aid conditional on progress toward democracy. This study investigates whether and how such conditionality works in practice. The promise of higher aid if the country democratizes only provides an incentive for democratization for political leaders who expect to remain in office after democratization occurs. I show that dictators with large distributional coalitions, who have a good chance of winning fair elections, tend to respond to aid by democratizing. In contrast, aid helps dictators with the smallest distributional coalitions hang on to power. I present a model that shows a dictator's decision calculus, given different a priori support coalitions and varying degrees of aid conditionality, and test the model implications with data from 190 authoritarian regimes in 101 countries from 1960 to 2002. [source] Dominant Party Strategy and DemocratizationAMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 1 2008Kenneth F. Greene How do incumbent parties strategize against challengers when a new partisan cleavage cuts across the incumbent's electoral coalition? This article argues that a two-dimensional extension of Riker's anticoordination thesis conflicts with Downsian extensions. It shows that when voters coordinate on a single challenger based on their shared preference on a cross-cutting cleavage, a vote-maximizing incumbent party should move away from the challenger on the primary dimension of competition, even at the risk of abandoning the center. The article develops this hypothesis with reference to dominant parties in competitive authoritarian regimes where challenger parties constantly attempt "heresthetical" moves by mobilizing regime issues into the partisan debate, and it tests the predictions with an original sample survey of national leaders of Mexico's Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI). It also spells out the implications of the findings for dominant party survivability in democratic transitions and, more broadly, for incumbents' spatial strategies in the face of new partisan cleavages. [source] DEMOCRATIZATION AND FINANCIAL REFORM IN TAIWAN: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF BAD-LOAN CREATIONTHE DEVELOPING ECONOMIES, Issue 3 2002Yukihito SAT This study shows that many bad loans now burdening Taiwan's financial institutions are interrelated with the society's democratization which started in the late 1980s. Democratization made the local factions and business groups more independent from the Kuomintang government. They acquired more political influence than under the authoritarian regime. These changes induced them to manage their owned financial institutions more arbitrarily and to intervene more frequently in the state-affiliated financial institutions. Moreover they interfered in financial reform and compelled the government to allow many more new banks than it had originally planned. As a result the financial system became more competitive and the qualities of loans deteriorated. Some local factions and business groups exacerbated the situation by establishing banks in order to funnel funds to themselves, sometimes illegally. Thus many bad loans were created as the side effect of democratization. [source] Self-Ownership and Property in the Person: Democratization and a Tale of Two ConceptsTHE JOURNAL OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, Issue 1 2002Carole Pateman First page of article [source] THE FACE OF MONEY: Currency, Crisis, and Remediation in Post-Suharto IndonesiaCULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 1 2009KAREN STRASSLER ABSTRACT In the period of transition following Suharto's resignation as president of Indonesia in 1998, the image of the 50,000Rp bill bearing his face became a visual shorthand for the corruption and abuse of power that had characterized his regime. Accessible, decentralized consumer technologies enabled people to alter money's appearance, transforming it from a fetish of the state into a malleable surface available for popular reinscription. As the medium of money was "remediated",absorbed into other media, refashioned, and circulated along new pathways,it became a means by which people engaged questions of state power, national integrity, political authenticity, and economic relations opened up by the crisis of Reformasi (Reform). The essay argues that remediations of public forms play a crucial role in times of political transition by enabling people to materialize alternative visions of political authority and authenticity. Moreover, remediated forms have become a characteristic modality of political communication in the post-Suharto period under conditions of democratization and an increasingly diversified media ecology. [source] Social Inequality in Education: A Constraint on an American High-Skills FutureCURRICULUM INQUIRY, Issue 4 2007THEODORE LEWIS ABSTRACT Countries everywhere are turning to education in the quest for competitive edge in the global economy. How to attain the high skills needed in new reformed workplaces is a preoccupation that can be observed across developed countries. In this widening discourse of high skills and competitiveness, the U.S. skills production model is being seen as undesirable because it is perceived to be premised upon educational inequality and skills polarization. This article agrees with such characterization of the U.S educational condition. It examines skill tendencies in new reformed workplaces and conceptions of how schools must respond, then interrogates assumptions underpinning college-bound/non-college,bound formulations that would have low socioeconomic status (SES) children pursuing watered-down academic fare, or vocational education, while high SES children are set on college pathways. I contend that curricula approaches that are premised on alternative post-school destinations leave the children of underclasses in the same unfavorable position as their parents, such curricula serving only to reproduce inequality. The article rejects curriculum tracking, and the notion of the non-college bound, and instead argues for the democratization of high status knowledge as the best response to the challenge of a high-skills future. [source] Transforming the Developmental Welfare State in East AsiaDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 3 2005Huck-ju Kwon This article attempts to explain changes and continuity in the developmental welfare states in Korea and Taiwan within the East Asian context. It first elaborates two strands of welfare developmentalism (selective vs. inclusive), and establishes that the welfare state in both countries fell into the selective category of developmental welfare states before the Asian economic crisis of 1997. The key principles of the selective strand of welfare developmentalism are productivism, selective social investment and authoritarianism; inclusive welfare development is based on productivism, universal social investment and democratic governance. The article then argues that the policy reform toward an inclusive welfare state in Korea and Taiwan was triggered by the need for structural reform in the economy. The need for economic reform, together with democratization, created institutional space in policy-making for advocacy coalitions, which made successful advances towards greater social rights. Finally, the article argues that the experiences of Korea and Taiwan counter the neo-liberal assertion that the role of social policy in economic development is minor, and emphasizes that the idea of an inclusive developmental welfare state should be explored in the wider context of economic and social development. [source] Limits to Democratic Development in Civil Society and the State: The Case of Santo DomingoDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 1 2003Anne Marie Choup Some scholars see civil society as key to democratization of the political system. In this view, pressure from civil society forces democratization of the state. However, this disregards the fact that changes in civil society's behaviour require changes in political society , changes are reciprocal. The demand,making strategies of grassroots organizations in the Dominican Republic in 1999 provide a good example of this dynamic: the incomplete nature of the democratic transition (specifically, the persistence of paternalism and clientelism) constrained the democratic strategy choices of the civil society organizations. Just as democratization within political society is inconsistent and incomplete, so will be the demand,making strategies of the grassroots towards the state. The Dominican case is of particular interest as it illustrates the blend of personalized and institutionalized elements characteristic of democratic transition. [source] Democratization and State Feminism: Gender Politics in Africa and Latin AmericaDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 3 2002Ihejirika, Philomina E. Okeke This article addresses the link between state feminism and democratization in the global South. The authors use the contrasting cases of Chile and Nigeria to show some of the factors that encourage women to exploit the opportunities presented by transitions to democracy, and link the outcome of state feminism to the strategies and discourses available to women during democratization. Based on evidence from the cases analysed, the authors propose that the strategic options available to women are shaped by at least three factors: (1) the existence of a unified women's movement capable of making political demands; (2) existing patterns of gender relations, which influence women's access to arenas of political influence and power; and (3) the content of existing gender ideologies, and whether women can creatively deploy them to further their own interests. State feminism emerged in Chile out of the demands of a broad,based women's movement in a context of democratic transition that provided feminists with access to political institutions. In Nigeria, attempts at creating state feminism have consistently failed due to a political transition from military to civilian rule that has not provided feminists with access to political arenas of influence, and the absence of a powerful women's movement. [source] CORRUPTION AND POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC REFORMS: A STRUCTURAL BREAKS APPROACHECONOMICS & POLITICS, Issue 2 2008ANDERS OLOFSGÅRD In this paper we look at the impact of broad policy reforms on the levels of corruption. We use a structural break approach to identify country-specific time periods in which significant shifts in corruption levels take place. We then correlate these times of change with a set of covariates with specific focus on the impact of democratization, and trade and equity market liberalization. We find robust support for the hypothesis that episodes of reduction in corruption levels tend to be correlated with democratization and equity market liberalization. [source] The theory of human development: A cross-cultural analysisEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 3 2003CHRISTIAN WELZEL This article demonstrates that socioeconomic development, emancipative cultural change and democratization constitute a coherent syndrome of social progress , a syndrome whose common focus has not been properly specified by classical modernization theory. We specify this syndrome as ,human development', arguing that its three components have a common focus on broadening human choice. Socioeconomic development gives people the objective means of choice by increasing individual resources; rising emancipative values strengthen people's subjective orientation towards choice; and democratization provides legal guarantees of choice by institutionalizing freedom rights. Analysis of data from the World Values Surveys demonstrates that the linkage between individual resources, emancipative values and freedom rights is universal in its presence across nations, regions and cultural zones; that this human development syndrome is shaped by a causal effect of individual resources and emancipative values on freedom rights; and that this effect operates through its impact on elite integrity, as the factor which makes freedom rights effective. [source] Can America Finance Freedom?FOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS, Issue 4 2009Assessing U.S. Democracy Promotion via Economic Statecraft Recent discourse on U.S. efforts to promote democracy has focused on military activities; especially the strategic and normative perils of democracy promotion at the point of bayonets. This paper explores the United States' use of economic statecraft to foster democratization, with particular attention to democracy incentive and assistance strategies. Incentive approaches attempt to promote democracy from the top-down, by leveraging aid and trade privileges to persuade authoritarian leaders to implement political reform. Assistance approaches aim to induce democratization from the inside, through funding and technical assistance to state institutions, and from the bottom-up, by providing support to civil society and elections. This study finds that while top-down incentive approaches can stimulate democratic change, this strategy tends to work only when aid and trade benefits are conditional; that is, when benefits are withheld until recipient states meet rigorous democratic benchmarks. Washington has historically eschewed democratic conditionality, however, and thus can claim very few aid-induced or trade-induced democratization events. Scant evidence exists to demonstrate that inside approaches,that is, institutional aid,possesses significant capacity to induce democracy. It is the bottom-up approach,empowering the masses to compel democratic change,that has registered the greatest number of democracy promotion successes. [source] Nation Building and Women: The Effect of Intervention on Women's AgencyFOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS, Issue 1 2008Mary Caprioli Regardless of the primary motive, international military intervention aimed at nation building is partly intended to establish democratic societies. And scholars have demonstrated that intervention does have a positive impact on democratization. With democratization generally follows greater support for human rights. Feminist scholars, however, have questioned definitions of democracy in which at minimal, women's political rights are absent. This brings into question the impact of intervention on the status of women. Particularly in both Iraq and Afghanistan women's rights have become prominent in the post-invasion American political rhetoric. Since intervention seems to be associated with the spread of democratic principles, we seek to discover whether intervention actually moves societies toward gender equality. We examine all six cases of completed military intervention aimed at nation building in sovereign states during the post Cold War period. Three of the cases,El Salvador, Mozambique, Namibia,evidence democratic change; whereas, the remaining three states,Cambodia, Haiti, Somalia,remain undemocratized. We test the extent to which intervention has or has not improved women's equality and find no dramatic effect, either positive or negative, of intervention on the status of women in any of the six states. [source] Party-System Reform in Democracy's Grey Zone: A Response to MoraskiGOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 2 2009Kenneth Wilson This article analyses the party-system reforms introduced in Russia during Vladimir Putin's presidency. It contests Byron Moraski's interpretation, published in an earlier edition of this journal, which claims that the reforms introduced in Putin's second term were a response to the 2003 Duma election and were intended to preserve the unity and discipline of United Russia, the regime's ,party of power'. This article argues that Moraski's explanation of the second-term reforms is flawed and contends that the first- and second-term reforms were part of a wider reform programme designed to centralize Russia's political system, consolidate its party system and contribute to the construction of a façade democracy. The article also challenges Moraski's argument that these reforms, while introduced to advance the regime's interests, could further democratization in the longer term by adding the crucial caveat that stronger opposition parties that could act as a democratizing influence will only emerge if practices of electoral manipulation lessen or fail. [source] Democracy, Islam and Dialogue: The Case of TurkeyGOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 4 2005Bora Kanra The November 2002 general elections in Turkey produced an Islamic-leaning government, supported by one of the biggest majorities, bringing the relationship between Islam and democracy under scrutiny. This paper examines the nature of this relationship and the current political situation in Turkey. It argues that Turkey's long-running aspiration for democratization has now a reasonable chance of success. This argument is supported by the findings of a Q study, conducted in Turkey during the 2002 election campaign, indicating strong support for dialogue, particularly within the Turkish Muslim community. Yet, it will also argue that turning this possibility into a success depends on the implementation of the right deliberative framework. Habermas's discourse theory of democracy provides the essentials for this. However, particularly in the context of a divided society, like Turkey, it has to be complemented with a better emphasis on deliberation as a social learning process, as in Dryzek's theory of discursive democracy. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||