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Democratic transition is the process of changing, without major violence, from a nondemocratic regime to a democratic one. It can be distinguished from other paths to democratization that involve higher levels of violent conflict: “revolution,” as occurred in late eighteenth-century France, and “foreign intervention,” such as that undertaken by American and allied troops in Western Europe and Japan at the end of World War II (1949–1945).

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, peaceful processes of democratization took place in a number of countries that already had multicandidate elections. This democratization was done by enlarging the eligible electorate within the country. In the United Kingdom, the United States, and other former British colonies, suffrage rights were allocated gradually to different minority groups through a slow, lengthy process of moderate reforms. By a different path, in Germany and in northern European countries, such as Sweden, Norway, and Finland, enfranchisement of the electorate was sudden. Such a rapid change could have created political instability, but this shift was made in conjunction with the establishment of proportional representation electoral rules and other institutional inclusive devices.

New ways of democratization advancing more directly from dictatorial or colonial regimes developed in the late twentieth century. Social mobilization and bargaining among the elites have led to democratic transitions in southern Europe since the mid-1970s, in Latin America and Eastern Asia since the early 1980s, and in eastern Europe since the late 1980s. As a result of these processes, a majority of the world’s population now lives in democratic or liberal regimes for the first time in human history.

A democratic transition requires three components. First, there must be a variety of political actors with different political regime preferences. The incumbent government may be split between hard-liners and soft-liners who promote different responses to the threat of opposition movements. Within each of these groups, radical and moderate elements can be distinguished for their propensity to either reject or accept intermediate compromises with other actors.

Second, the dictatorial regime can be successfully challenged following a triggering event, such as the death of the dictator, an economic crisis, the failure of authoritarian rulers to deliver on their promises and meet the people’s expectations, or a foreign military defeat.

Third, opportunities for choice appear. On the incumbent rulers’ side, the costs of implementing repression against the opposition can be compared with the potential benefits of opening the system or calling an election under relatively favorable conditions to retain or share power. On the opposition’s side, the costs of fighting, including the risks of provoking a civil war and the subsequent losses and destruction, can be compared with the potential benefits of accepting a provisional compromise that establishes better conditions for further action and organization. In the end, the government and the opposition may come to an agreement because of their different expectations and uncertainty about the future.

Different models of democratic transitions can be distinguished by the roles of their actors, the paths that the transitions take, and the consequences of the transitions. First, the transaction model, also called establishment of democracy without democrats, transition from inside, transformation, and agreed reform, implies significant exchanges between factions of rulers while keeping the opposition in a weakened state, the introduction of liberalization before democratization, and the enjoyment of relatively advantageous conditions by former authoritarians to survive and evolve in power. Cases of initial liberalizing reforms launched from above in a nondemocratic regime include Brazil and Spain in the second half of the 1970s and the Soviet Union in the second half of the 1980s.

Second, the round table model, also called extrication or trans placement, involves more formal and balanced negotiations between reform rulers and opposition movements, as happened in Chile as well as in Poland and Hungary in the late 1980s.

Finally, the collapse model, also called breakdown, defeat, or replacement, implies sudden changes imposed by an unexpected crisis, improvised conversations between former persecutors and the persecuted, and quick, dramatic decisions. Changes in Portugal and Greece in the 1970s, Argentina in the early 1980s, and East Germany and Czechoslovakia in the late 1980s, among others, can fit this model.

The focus on actors’ strategies might complement more traditional discussions on structural conditions for democracy. The “strategic” approach permits the use of tools from game theory to identify crucial actors, bargains, and decisions. Studies of democratic transitions also consider the role of international organizations and information as well as the relations between the path of change and institutional choices, economic reforms, and further degrees of democratic consolidation and stability.

Bibliography:

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