The goal of this report is to examine how the relative balance of power between competing elites affects institutional choice in new democracies and the consequences this may have on democratic stability. I first develop a theoretical framework around the hypothesis that if the newly established democratic institutions to some degree safeguard the interests of the outgoing elites, they are less likely to defy them and find unconstitutional means through which to protect said interests. Given that elites ousted from power in a democratic transition are rarely rendered powerless by the process, this report works under the assumption that democratic reform is to some degree implemented by the outgoing ruling elite groups that at the same time stand to lose from it. If we assume these elite groups behave rationally, they will act strategically to protect their interests and thus will prefer institutions that are compatible with the upholding of such interests even when their political opponents are in power. iii The ability to affect institutional choice is of course limited by the relative power the ruling elites hold at the time of institutional choice. Even so, competing elites may make concessions in order for the outgoing elites not to go back on democratic reform in case the balance of power shifts back in their favor, allowing them to protect their advances in the struggle for power. Thus for democratic reform to be sustainable in the long-term, it must be through institutions that reduce the perceived risks they pose to elites interests. Under this theoretical framework, I study the case of the constitutional choice process that led to the current Chilean electoral system. After the 1988 plebiscite, the military regime was surprised by the fact that over 55% of the electorate voted for elections to be held. This meant that in order for them to secure the market-oriented reforms they had implemented under Pinochet, the 1980 constitution would have to be amended. But given the relative balance of power between them and their opponents, both sides would have to make concessions. This would lead to an electoral system that remains unchanged to this day. / text

MA (History) / Department of Development Studies / The study examines the process of democratic consolidation in South Africa since 1994. This study unpacks the trends, developments and challenges which have taken place since 1994 towards the entrenchment of democracy in the country. The research will explore the nature of the rule of the ANC in the light of efforts, successes and failures in consolidating democratic rule in the country. The major problem which prompted this study is that, claims of South Africa as a democratic state have not been scrutinised by academics, and this study seeks to question the validity of the phrase “New democracy” which is commonly used by both politicians and academics in referring to the government since 1994. The study will be informed by notions of democracy and will utilise the indicators of democracy to locate whether South Africa can be viewed as a true democracy, or if it offers some elements, but neglecting some of the key components of democracy. The other critical issue will be to determine the extent to which democratic institutions have been strengthened in the country. This will be basically a literaturebased study, which depends more on reviewing policies enacted by the government and determining if the policies entail democratic consolidation. The overall assumption is that more still needs to be done towards entrenching democratic institutions that address socio-economic inequalities that persist in the country. Theoretically the study builds from the liberal discourse and its fundamental notions of democracy and good governance

Thesis (M.A.)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humanities, Journalism and Media Studies, 2013 / HIV and AIDS came into the national spotlight as soon as the ANC government took over from the Apartheid regime in South Africa and media coverage of the pandemic has attracted considerable attention. This research investigates how journalists view the way they covered HIV and AIDS in the new South Africa — after 1994. This was a time when the journalism profession was faced with a wide range of expectations including educating people about their rights, exposing the escalation of crime and corruption, reporting on service delivery and promoting social cohesion or transformation. Arguably, this was also a time when the government expected the media to help it build new social cohesiveness and be less critical of its shortcomings. The research investigates how journalists handled the interplay of news values, journalistic practices and political pressures of HIV/AIDS reporting after 1994. Careful attention is given specifically to the period of 1996 to 1999 since this period was marked by many HIV and AIDS controversies. The Virodene saga, one of the scandals that saw HIV and AIDS making headlines at the time, is used as the primary case study of this investigation. This study uses the social responsibility theory as the main theoretical framework. The theory states that the media has an obligation to educate and inform people; thereby playing a monitorial or watchdog role — making sure the government is accountable to the people who voted it in. The research used in-depth interviews with eight journalists who covered HIV and AIDS in the new South Africa to get their views on the issue and a brief content analysis to understand how HIV and AIDS scandals broke and how journalists handled them. Though previous research shows that HIV and AIDS was not well covered and only made headlines when the story was a controversy, findings in this study challenge these notions. The research found that despite feeling the need to give the government a chance to mature (collaborative role), journalists chose to play the social responsibility or watchdog role in HIV reporting by covering facts despite this reflecting badly on the government. The paper also points out that the Virodene story ‘automatically’ turned into a scandal and in newsroom terms, became a political story, not an ordinary a health story. Although journalistic professional values have been criticised for causing journalists to favour certain issues over others, in this case they exposed government’s shortfalls and averted a potentially disastrous situation. This research not only positions itself to offer deep understanding of the sensitive issue of HIV and AIDS reporting but also offers insights into the very ethos of the journalism profession itself.

<p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><h1>Abstract</h1><h2>C-Level Paper in Political Science, by David Olsson, Autumn 2008. Supervisor: Malin Stegman McCallion. “Regime Type and Trade Policy: Has Increased Democratization Contributed to Lower Trade Barriers Among Autocratic States?”</h2><p> </p><p>In this paper a new two-level game theory, based on previous research and deductive reasoning, is constructed and tested empirically. The purpose is to examine if developing new democracies, trading with developing autocracies, is an explanatory factor of trade liberalization among the latter. The research questions are: 1) Have tariff rates in developing autocratic countries followed the pattern of reduced tariffs among their developing new democratic trading partners? And; 2) If this is the case, is there a relative shift in trade flows that confirms this change to be an effect of the new democracies’ presumed influence?</p><p>                      In order to sufficiently carry out an empirical scrutiny, seven other determinants found to have effects on trade policies in previous research, are accounted for using a “most similar systems design”. For reasons of delimitation, six autocracies and their fifteen most important trading partners, observed 1980-1999, have been paired and analyzed. Each pair consists of one autocracy that trades with new democracies and one that does not; regarding the other determinants they are as similar as possible. The used material is the World Development Indicators, the Polity IV Dataset, the Yearbook of International Trade Statistics, the World Economic Outlook Database, the Database of Political Institutions, statistics from the World Trade Organization, the Dataset of Armed Conflicts, and the Unweighted Average Tariffs Measurement.   </p><p>                      The conclusion is that there are no indicators that affirm the theory and research questions. However, the theory is not unambiguously falsified. Hence, studies on more countries and time spans are needed.       </p><p> </p><p> </p></p><p> </p><p><p> </p></p><p> </p>

Este trabalho tem o objetivo de analisar a emergência de novos partidos políticos no Brasil entre 1979 e 2015 visando a compreender se o arcabouço legal é suficiente para explicar este fenômeno. Com base na literatura de Ciência política, estudamos a formação de novas organizações partidárias na Nova Democracia a partir de três dimensões: aspecto político, contexto socioeconômico e arcabouço legal. A pesquisa está dividida em quatro capítulos: sendo que o primeiro consiste em uma revisão da literatura sobre novos partidos e o segundo é destinado às considerações metodológicas que orientaram o trabalho. O terceiro capítulo analisa o surgimento de novos partidos no Brasil sob a ótica do contexto político, do aspecto socioeconômico e do arcabouço legal de acordo com os cenários dos seis períodos históricos recortados: 1979 a 1984, 1985 a 1989, 1990 a 1994, 1995 a 2002, 2003 a 2010 e 2011 a 2015. Dentro de cada um destes períodos, as variáveis foram classificadas como incentivadoras ou inibidoras em relação à criação de novos partidos. Por fim, o último capítulo é dedicado a responder ao problema de pesquisa, articulando as análises dos períodos de forma comparada. Os resultados encontrados confirmaram a hipótese de que um arcabouço legal é necessário para compreender o surgimento de novas organizações partidárias, mas não é suficiente para explicar este fenômeno, que é complexo e multicausal. / This paper aims to analyze the new political parties’ emergence in Brazil between 1979 and 2015 in order to understand if the legal framework is sufficient to explain this phenomenon. Based on the Political Science literature, the formation of new parties is studied from three variables: political, socioeconomic and legal framework. This research is divided in four chapters: the first consists in a literature review about new parties’ formation and the second is dedicated to the methodological considerations that guided this study. The third chapter analyses the new political parties’ emergence in Brazil considering political, socioeconomic and legal aspects according to the scenarios of the six historical periods determined: 1979 to 1984, 1985 to 1989, 1990 to 1994, 1995 to 2002, 2003 to 2010 and 2011 to 2015. For each period, the variables were classified as encourager or inhibitor of new parties’ formation. The last chapter articulates the analysis of the periods in a comparative perspective. The results confirmed the hypothesis: the legal framework is required to understand new parties’ formation, even though it is not enough to explain this phenomenon, which is complex and multifactorial.

Através da utilização de bibliografia e de fontes documentais, busquei analisar de que maneira os movimentos de oposição ao regime militar brasileiro se organizaram a partir da segunda metade da década de 1970, dando especial ênfase ao Movimento Estudantil, aos Movimentos Sociais e a algumas manifestações culturais da juventude brasileira do período. Tendo como ponto de comparação os mesmos movimentos nos anos 60, foi possível concluir que a oposição ao regime, nos anos 70 e 80, adquiriu novas formas de contestação, especialmente no interior dos movimentos sociais, nos quais as reivindicações partiam de suas bases, e não mais de uma cúpula. Frente a essa nova realidade, o movimento estudantil, com suas entidades e lideranças, se viu forçado a inserir-se na luta daqueles movimentos, enquanto grande parte da juventude, descrente face à contínua partidarização de suas reivindicações, voltou-se a novas formas culturais para demonstrar seus valores e desejos, fossem eles políticos ou não. / Using the bibliography and historical documents, I tried to analyze how the movements against the Brazilian military dictatorship reorganized themselves in the second part of the 1970s, especially the Students Movement, the Social Movements and some cultural manifestations of the countrys youth groups in that period. Making a comparison with the same groups in the 1960s, I could conclude that the opposition to the regime, in the 1970s and the 1980s, developed new ways of contestation, especially inside the social movements groups, in which the demands came from the people, not from the leaders anymore. Facing this new reality, the students movement, with its representative entities and leadership, had to join the struggle of the social movements groups, while many part of the Brazilian youth, not pleased with the interference of political groups in their demands, turned themselves to new cultural demonstrations to show their values and desires, being them political or not.

During much of the 20th century, the national party systems of Western Europe remained largely unchanged. However, beginning in the 1970s, these frozen party systems slowly started to melt. As the number of parties has increased, the question of what explains new party entrance has also attracted more scholarly interest. Despite this increased attention, the study of new political parties still suffers from a structuralist bias. The implication is that the fates of new parties are decided almost exclusively by external factors. Some scholars focus on the institutional environment; others emphasize sociological explanations, such as the formation of new cleavages in society. Yet such non-actor-centred perspectives risk being excessively deterministic. They also struggle to explain why some parties succeed in gaining entrance to legislatures while others, seemingly under the same external circumstances, fail. In this thesis, therefore, a new way to study parties and their path to parliament is proposed. Starting with the notion that external conditions alone cannot explain new party entrance, the thesis takes an agency-based perspective. Three sets of strategies are identified as being important means for a party to influence its chances of getting into parliament. They concern the party's resources, its political project and its external relations. In what ways can supply and management of resources, policies and relations with other parties affect the potential for becoming a parliamentary party? Through four in-depth case studies of new entrants into the Swedish national parliament, the Riksdag, the thesis concludes that there are some important commonalities in their paths to parliament. Especially with regard to their resources and their political project, the empirical evidence supports the initial premise: new party entrance is unthinkable without successful strategic behaviour.

During much of the 20th century, the national party systems of Western Europe remained largely unchanged. However, beginning in the 1970s, these frozen party systems slowly started to melt. As the number of parties has increased, the question of what explains new party entrance has also attracted more scholarly interest. Despite this increased attention, the study of new political parties still suffers from a structuralist bias. The implication is that the fates of new parties are decided almost exclusively by external factors. Some scholars focus on the institutional environment; others emphasize sociological explanations, such as the formation of new cleavages in society. Yet such non-actor-centred perspectives risk being excessively deterministic. They also struggle to explain why some parties succeed in gaining entrance to legislatures while others, seemingly under the same external circumstances, fail. In this thesis, therefore, a new way to study parties and their path to parliament is proposed. Starting with the notion that external conditions alone cannot explain new party entrance, the thesis takes an agency-based perspective. Three sets of strategies are identified as being important means for a party to influence its chances of getting into parliament. They concern the party's resources, its political project and its external relations. In what ways can supply and management of resources, policies and relations with other parties affect the potential for becoming a parliamentary party? Through four in-depth case studies of new entrants into the Swedish national parliament, the Riksdag, the thesis concludes that there are some important commonalities in their paths to parliament. Especially with regard to their resources and their political project, the empirical evidence supports the initial premise: new party entrance is unthinkable without successful strategic behaviour.

Este trabalho tem o objetivo de analisar a emergência de novos partidos políticos no Brasil entre 1979 e 2015 visando a compreender se o arcabouço legal é suficiente para explicar este fenômeno. Com base na literatura de Ciência política, estudamos a formação de novas organizações partidárias na Nova Democracia a partir de três dimensões: aspecto político, contexto socioeconômico e arcabouço legal. A pesquisa está dividida em quatro capítulos: sendo que o primeiro consiste em uma revisão da literatura sobre novos partidos e o segundo é destinado às considerações metodológicas que orientaram o trabalho. O terceiro capítulo analisa o surgimento de novos partidos no Brasil sob a ótica do contexto político, do aspecto socioeconômico e do arcabouço legal de acordo com os cenários dos seis períodos históricos recortados: 1979 a 1984, 1985 a 1989, 1990 a 1994, 1995 a 2002, 2003 a 2010 e 2011 a 2015. Dentro de cada um destes períodos, as variáveis foram classificadas como incentivadoras ou inibidoras em relação à criação de novos partidos. Por fim, o último capítulo é dedicado a responder ao problema de pesquisa, articulando as análises dos períodos de forma comparada. Os resultados encontrados confirmaram a hipótese de que um arcabouço legal é necessário para compreender o surgimento de novas organizações partidárias, mas não é suficiente para explicar este fenômeno, que é complexo e multicausal. / This paper aims to analyze the new political parties’ emergence in Brazil between 1979 and 2015 in order to understand if the legal framework is sufficient to explain this phenomenon. Based on the Political Science literature, the formation of new parties is studied from three variables: political, socioeconomic and legal framework. This research is divided in four chapters: the first consists in a literature review about new parties’ formation and the second is dedicated to the methodological considerations that guided this study. The third chapter analyses the new political parties’ emergence in Brazil considering political, socioeconomic and legal aspects according to the scenarios of the six historical periods determined: 1979 to 1984, 1985 to 1989, 1990 to 1994, 1995 to 2002, 2003 to 2010 and 2011 to 2015. For each period, the variables were classified as encourager or inhibitor of new parties’ formation. The last chapter articulates the analysis of the periods in a comparative perspective. The results confirmed the hypothesis: the legal framework is required to understand new parties’ formation, even though it is not enough to explain this phenomenon, which is complex and multifactorial.

Este trabalho tem o objetivo de analisar a emergência de novos partidos políticos no Brasil entre 1979 e 2015 visando a compreender se o arcabouço legal é suficiente para explicar este fenômeno. Com base na literatura de Ciência política, estudamos a formação de novas organizações partidárias na Nova Democracia a partir de três dimensões: aspecto político, contexto socioeconômico e arcabouço legal. A pesquisa está dividida em quatro capítulos: sendo que o primeiro consiste em uma revisão da literatura sobre novos partidos e o segundo é destinado às considerações metodológicas que orientaram o trabalho. O terceiro capítulo analisa o surgimento de novos partidos no Brasil sob a ótica do contexto político, do aspecto socioeconômico e do arcabouço legal de acordo com os cenários dos seis períodos históricos recortados: 1979 a 1984, 1985 a 1989, 1990 a 1994, 1995 a 2002, 2003 a 2010 e 2011 a 2015. Dentro de cada um destes períodos, as variáveis foram classificadas como incentivadoras ou inibidoras em relação à criação de novos partidos. Por fim, o último capítulo é dedicado a responder ao problema de pesquisa, articulando as análises dos períodos de forma comparada. Os resultados encontrados confirmaram a hipótese de que um arcabouço legal é necessário para compreender o surgimento de novas organizações partidárias, mas não é suficiente para explicar este fenômeno, que é complexo e multicausal. / This paper aims to analyze the new political parties’ emergence in Brazil between 1979 and 2015 in order to understand if the legal framework is sufficient to explain this phenomenon. Based on the Political Science literature, the formation of new parties is studied from three variables: political, socioeconomic and legal framework. This research is divided in four chapters: the first consists in a literature review about new parties’ formation and the second is dedicated to the methodological considerations that guided this study. The third chapter analyses the new political parties’ emergence in Brazil considering political, socioeconomic and legal aspects according to the scenarios of the six historical periods determined: 1979 to 1984, 1985 to 1989, 1990 to 1994, 1995 to 2002, 2003 to 2010 and 2011 to 2015. For each period, the variables were classified as encourager or inhibitor of new parties’ formation. The last chapter articulates the analysis of the periods in a comparative perspective. The results confirmed the hypothesis: the legal framework is required to understand new parties’ formation, even though it is not enough to explain this phenomenon, which is complex and multifactorial.