The Structural Context of Recent Transitions to Democracy
European Journal of Political Research 43: 309–335, 2004
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The structural context of recent transitions to democracy
RENSKE DOORENSPLEET
Leiden University, The Netherlands
Abstract. In general, the literature on democratic transitions has focused on political processes and choices of actors in explaining regime change, thereby failing to investigate whether structural factors affect the recent rise in transitions to democracy. An analysis of the influence of these structural factors is however important, and it has not yet been done in a systematic way in order to explain recent transitions to democracy since 1989. It will be shown that some structural factors indeed play a role in generating transitions to democracy. These results contradict the idea that structural factors can be ignored when explaining recent transitions to democracy. An additional finding in this article is that some structural factors, such as economic development, growth and a country’s role in the worldsystem had an unexpected impact on democratic transitions since the end of the Cold War. These findings set bounds to the strength of the modernization and world-system theories to explain transitions to democracy, but on the other hand, democratic diffusion played a significant role after 1989. In the (structural) context in which a state had a peripheral role, a low level of economic growth and a high proportion of democratic neighbors, the probability of a state’s transition to democracy was high. This structural context seemed to be fertile soil for recent transitions to democracy.
Introduction
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, many nondemocratic regimes have undergone a transition to democracy. This rapid political transformation began in Eastern Europe, spread to Latin America and parts of Asia, and then moved to parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Nevertheless, the democratic wave did not engulf China, Cuba, Iraq, Iran, Ivory Coast, Kuwait, North Korea, Libya, Zimbabwe and many
309
The structural context of recent transitions to democracy
RENSKE DOORENSPLEET
Leiden University, The Netherlands
Abstract. In general, the literature on democratic transitions has focused on political processes and choices of actors in explaining regime change, thereby failing to investigate whether structural factors affect the recent rise in transitions to democracy. An analysis of the influence of these structural factors is however important, and it has not yet been done in a systematic way in order to explain recent transitions to democracy since 1989. It will be shown that some structural factors indeed play a role in generating transitions to democracy. These results contradict the idea that structural factors can be ignored when explaining recent transitions to democracy. An additional finding in this article is that some structural factors, such as economic development, growth and a country’s role in the worldsystem had an unexpected impact on democratic transitions since the end of the Cold War. These findings set bounds to the strength of the modernization and world-system theories to explain transitions to democracy, but on the other hand, democratic diffusion played a significant role after 1989. In the (structural) context in which a state had a peripheral role, a low level of economic growth and a high proportion of democratic neighbors, the probability of a state’s transition to democracy was high. This structural context seemed to be fertile soil for recent transitions to democracy.
Introduction
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, many nondemocratic regimes have undergone a transition to democracy. This rapid political transformation began in Eastern Europe, spread to Latin America and parts of Asia, and then moved to parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Nevertheless, the democratic wave did not engulf China, Cuba, Iraq, Iran, Ivory Coast, Kuwait, North Korea, Libya, Zimbabwe and many