Wolfgang Merkel

Bio: Wolfgang Merkel is an academic researcher from Social Science Research Center Berlin. The author has contributed to research in topics: Democratization & Dictatorship. The author has an hindex of 9, co-authored 10 publications receiving 431 citations.

The Dynamics of Democratization: Dictatorship, Development, and Diffusion The Dynamics of Democratization: Dictatorship, Development, and Diffusion. Edited by Brown. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011. 344p. $65.00. Determinants of Democratization: Explaining Regime Change in the World, 1972–2006. By Teorell. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. 220p. $95.00 cloth, $29.99 paper.

Abstract: “Predictions are risky, particularly if they look into the future.” That deep philosophical insight goes back to a Bavarian comedian of the last century. We can assume that neither Talcott Parsons nor Francis Fukuyama has ever come across the Bavarian comedian Carl Valentin; otherwise they would not have so easily dared to predict the long-term victory of capitalist-democratic modernization or the end of history. Any look into the future is difficult for social and political scientists. But even looking back and finding ex post explanations for past developments is not uncontroversial in political science. This is true in particular for the “big questions” (Barbara Geddes), such as which determinants, causes, and drivers enable, promote, or prevent the democratization of political regimes. Since Seymour M. Lipset’s seminal essay “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Legitimacy” (American Political Science Review 53 [1959]: 69–105) triggered the democratization debate, no commonly agreed-upon answer has been found. Structuralists compete with agency theorists, modernization theory has been challenged by dependency theory, and lean monistic explanations are confronted with complex eclectic and contextual approaches, large-n with small-n studies, and long-term with short-term analyses. The prolific production of disputed studies on regime changes has suggested that there might be several answers, quite to the dismay of those who claim to have found one single answer to the big regime question, which is universally valid across time and space. Recently two books have been published that address those same old, but not yet uncontroversially answered, questions: Jan Teorell’s monograph on explaining regime change in the world since 1972, and the volume on “the dynamics of democratization” edited by Nathan J. Brown. The Swedish political scientist Teorell poses his questions right at the beginning of his thorough empirical analyses: “Why do some countries become democracies and others not? . . . Are social, economic or international forces the key determinants of these processes? Are some types of authoritarian regimes more prone to democratize than others? Do actors influence democratization, or is that a structurally determined outcome?” (Determinants of Democratization, p. 1). And finally: “What lessons can be learned for international efforts at promoting democracy from comparative democratization studies?” (ibid.). The questions posed to the authors of the edited volume mirror those which underlie Teorell’s study: “What causes a democracy to emerge and then maintains it? . . . Does democracy make things better? . . . Can democracy be promoted?” (The Dynamics of Democratization, pp. 1–2). Although the questions are the same, the applied theories and methods differ. Teorell developed his own theoretical approach, which he then adopted to his empirical analysis. He first critically reviews the virtues, pitfalls, and shortcomings of four prominent approaches: the structuralist (e.g., Lipset), the strategic (e.g., Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies, 1986), the economic (e.g., Carles Boix), and the social (e.g., Dietrich Rueschemeyer). The author convincingly argues that none of these approaches can explain regime changes as a whole, but they all have their analytical merits, which he intends to preserve in an “eclectic” combination of the structural, strategic, and social approaches. However, he excludes the new economic approaches of Boix (Democracy and Redistribution, 2003) and Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson (Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, 2006). Their somewhat orthodox rational choice–inspired economic approach “appears too occupied with conflicts over income distribution” (p. 12). Moreover, Teorell claims that their key explanation that democratization is triggered by decreasing income inequality “is not borne out in my data” (ibid.). By combining the strategic (agency) and structural (modernization theory) approach and not neglecting the force of social classes, he presents an eclectic but sound inclusive theoretical approach that promises to overcome the self-imposed limitations of the single theories. Brown’s volume, which grew out of a series of conferences, also does not follow one single theoretical approach. On the contrary, the editor deliberately allows for different theories and methods. Large-n analyses, such as the one by Jose Antonio Cheibub and James Raymond Vreeland on “Economic Development and Democratization,” and regional studies on the “Unexpected Resilience of Latin American Democracy” (Kathleen Bruhn) and “Present Authoritarianism and the Future of Democracy in Africa” (Staffan I. Lindberg and Sara Meerow) are assembled in the volume. So are case studies (“Sustaining Party Rule in China,” by Bruce J. Dickson); analyses of single institutions, such as Steven Fish’s “Strong Legislatures as the Key to Bolstering Democracy”; and specific determinants of democratization, such as “Legacy Effects” ( John Gerring), “Elections” (Susan D. Hyde), or “International Diffusion and Democratic Change” (Valerie J. Bunce and Sharon L. Wolchik). Each of these studies can | |

Are dictatorships returning? Revisiting the ‘democratic rollback’ hypothesis

Abstract: Since 2007 an increasing number of articles have diagnosed ‘freedom in retreat’ and predicted a ‘return to the authoritarian great powers’. Highly distinguished scholars warn against the ‘democratic rollback’, and articles on the resilience of authoritarian regimes have appeared in the best journals of political science. Is the tide of democratization turning, and do we have to expect a new reverse wave of autocratization? This article argues that there is no hard empirical evidence that we are witnessing a trend towards re-autocratization on a global scale. The optimism of the early 1990s of a seemingly irresistible trend towards democracy is partially due to an empirical artefact caused by inappropriate underlying theoretical concepts. The overestimation of human agency and political crafting on the one side and underestimation of structural impediments for democracy on the other side contributed to this optimism, as did the thin concept of ‘electoral democracy’ or teleological speculation about the end of history. Democratic rollback does not seem to be as widespread as is sometimes claimed.

Hard times and regime failure: autocratic responses to economic downturns

Abstract: Scholars rank problems in economic performance among the most important reasons for the collapse of autocratic regimes. This study forms no exception and explores the effect of economic misfortune on autocratic regime failure using a sample of 160 authoritarian regimes between 1981 and 2008. Moreover, this article introduces repression and co-optation as political variables which have the potential to mediate the adverse effects of economic misfortune. While the former shields authoritarian rule from vertical threats such as mass demonstrations, the latter addresses horizontal threats in the form of elite splits. As follows from the analysis, restrictions on political liberties (soft repression) serve autocrats better than infringements on personal integrity (hard repression) or co-optation. Furthermore, in contrast to other analyses, there is no evidence that co-optation in the form of quasi-democratic institutions prevents regime failure.

Introduction: democratization in the early twenty-first century

Abstract: Hardly any other subject in the last quarter of the twentieth century has influenced the research agenda of political science more than the transformation of authoritarian and ‘totalitarian’ political regimes into pluralist democracies. However, to the same extent that the third wave of democratization unfolded, beginning in 1974, which initially encompassed southern Europe and Latin America and then eventually included eastern Europe, Asia and Africa as well, the main focus of democratization studies shifted accordingly. While the ‘transitologists’ of the 1970s and 1980s investigated the conditions and modes of transition from dictatorship to democracy, the ‘consolidologists’ of the 1990s concentrated on inquiring into causes, conditions and models of the consolidation of young democracies. Most recently, the questions of whether democracy is working, how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ a democracy is, and of the conceptual issue of diminished sub-types of democracy (illiberal democracies, defective democracies and so on) have begun to become the new predominant trend in democracy theory and democratization studies. One must admit that a glance back at three decades of the ‘third wave’ indicates that political alternatives to democracy have since lost much of their appeal ‐ not only from an ideological point of view; their empirical relevance seems much diminished. The data offered by quantitative measurement of democracy leave no room for doubt about this. The political map of the world is, more than ever, marked by the presence of democracy. 1 However, some, if not many, new democracies (and some old ones) have very little to offer outside of elections, which liberal theorists of democracy would associate with the notion of a ‘liberal democracy’, a ‘good democracy’, or a ‘quality democracy’. As Thomas Carothers recently stated:

Economic growth and income inequality

Abstract: We investigate whether income inequality affects subsequent growth in a cross-country sample for 1965-90, using the models of Barro (1997), Bleaney and Nishiyama (2002) and Sachs and Warner (1997), with negative results. We then investigate the evolution of income inequality over the same period and its correlation with growth. The dominating feature is inequality convergence across countries. This convergence has been significantly faster amongst developed countries. Growth does not appear to influence the evolution of inequality over time. Outline

Democracy and Its Critics

Abstract: The course is focused on historical texts, most of them philosophical. Context for understanding the texts and the course of democratic development will be provided in lecture and discussions, and by some background readings (Dunn). We begin with the remarkable Athenian democracy, and its frequent enemy the Spartan oligarchy. In Athens legislation was passed directly by an assembly of all citizens, and executive officials were selected by lot rather than by competitive election. Athenian oligarchs such as Plato more admired Sparta, and their disdain for the democracy became the judgment of the ages, until well after the modern democratic revolutions. Marsilius of Padua in the early Middle Ages argued for popular sovereignty. The Italian citystates of the Middle Ages did without kings, and looked back to Rome and Greece for republican models. During the English Civil War republicans debated whether the few or the many should be full citizens of the regime. The English, French, and American revolutions struggled with justifying and establishing a representative democracy suitable for a large state, and relied on election rather than lot to select officials. The English established a constitutional monarchy, admired in Europe, and adapted by the Americans in their republican constitution. The American Revolution helped inspire the French, and the French inspired republican and democratic revolution throughout Europe during the 19 century.