Why do some (non)violent civil resistances in nondemocracies achieve democracy while others do not? In order to answer this question, this project examined factors that result in different outcomes and the mechanisms critical to democratization. In particular, I paid close attention to whether autocracies failing after successful (non)violent civil resistance adopted transitional justice (TJ) mechanisms such as trials, truth commissions, and amnesty, and how civil society worked in each course of democratization. I explored the conditions of democratic consolidation (e.g., economic development, democratic neighbors, and political institution) and among them, focused on the civil culture that led citizens to participate positively and actively in politics with belief and trust. I found that in the course of democratization, implementing TJ policies is necessary in order to build inter-group trust and encourage citizens to participate critically in political reform. Because TJ mechanisms are designed to make past wrongdoers accountable and reconcile conflicting sides, these approaches can strengthen civic culture and promote reconciliation by restoring the rule of law and rebuilding victims’ dignity. In addition, I argued that a robust civil society (CS) plays a vital role in sustaining democracy, not only by encouraging TJ adoption, but also by playing roles such as supporter, mobilizer, enforcer, monitor, and so on. In this context, I suggested that (non)violent civil resistance can contribute to building a robust CS. Particularly, nonviolent and large resistance with diverse participants can increase the capacity, legitimacy, and representativeness of a CS so that it can play its role(s) properly. Statistical analysis with large-n data supported these arguments. Despite the controversy in the literature, adoption of TJ policies turned out to be a positively significant factor for achieving democratic consolidation; and, the robustness of CS, which can be developed through (non)violent civil resistance, was significant as well, particularly at the early phase of the democratization process. The application to the 2011 Arab Uprising cases (Tunisia and Egypt) that focused on TJ adoption and the role of CS revealed consistent conclusions as well. Although there are several limitations to this study, I attempted to reveal the importance of the linkages among steps to democratization and increase understanding of the “process” rather than simply the “cause” or “result.” In addition, the findings can be implemented in policies for proliferating democracy by supporting/encouraging democratization from the ground up (i.e., below), CS growth, and TJ adoption after transition.

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Magister Artium - MA / This research study seeks to investigate how institutional arrangements impact on intra-party democracy in Malawi. Intra-party democracy is essential as it promotes party unity through reduced fragmentation and factionalism, encourages a culture of democratic debate and deliberation of critical issues within the party and therefore collective ownership of decisions. Further, it creates legitimate internal conflict management systems and finally, reduces opportunistic and arbitrary use of delegated authority. These are fundamental tenets of any functioning democratic entity. These elements of intra-party democracy are attainable if they are formerly stipulated and governed by the party’s constitutional rules. Where such rules either do not exist or are not effectively enforced, major operational problems arise. These may include: non-inclusive candidate selection procedures, centralised coalition negotiation processes, unprocedural conflict management mechanisms and unconstitutional or illegitimate party conventions. Consequently, the resulting outcomes include party instability and factionalism stimulated by resignations and expulsions, declining electoral support and weak coalitions. These factors undermine the party’s contribution to democracy. The next section gives the context and historical evolution of parties in Malawi. / South Africa

Virtually all African autocrats now govern with parliaments and organize regular, multiparty elections. They have little choice. Since the end of the Cold War, Western governments have required nominally democratic institutions in exchange for aid, investment, and debt relief. With violent repression impossible to conceal from the international community, life as an autocrat has grown more difficult. Since 1989, autocrats forced to govern with nominally democratic institutions have been 80% more likely to lose power than their counterparts. Between 1986 and 2000, the number of autocracies in Africa fell from 45 to 30. The rate of democratization has slowed, for Africa's autocrats learned to survive democratic institutions. To understand how, this dissertation focuses on the Republic of Congo, ruled by Denis Sassou Nguesso for all but five years since 1979. Using original data on the Congolese elite, their political parties, elections, and the security apparatus, this dissertation finds that Africa's autocrats confront challenges old and new with different constraints. Accordingly, they find different solutions. Whereas autocrats once relied on single parties to prevent elite coups, they now secure compliance with social tools. By redefining the pool of candidates for the regime's critical positions, Africa's autocrats employ a "politics of hope," which induces loyalty when elites are excluded from the regime. To monitor appointees, Africa's contemporary autocrats create social institutions, in which new recruits interact with trusted aides. Autocrats supplement these with parallel governments, which force elites separated by cleavages to compete against each other. When Africa's autocrats deploy these monitoring devices effectively, they forgo arbitrary purges in favor of tenure policies that reward competence. The international community's insistence on elections creates "focal moments," when citizens sense their shared discontent. Since they believe international attention will shield them from repression, opposition leaders mobilize unrest. This institutional landscape compels autocrats to fashion electoral alliances with opposition leaders. By joining the regime they once impugned, opposition leaders sacrifice public credibility for ministerial perquisites. Popular goodwill constitutes an insurance policy, and so Africa's autocrats commission surrogates to generate it. With repression less credible, autocrats construct their security apparatuses to threaten violence without provoking it. / Government

The diploma thesis examines prospects of democracy in developing countries. The first part deals with the notion democracy, ways of its measuring and its conditions. The second part introduces democratization processes during the twentieth century. Next chapters outline contemporary situation in three developing continents -- Latin America, Africa and Asia. Final part summarizes prospects of democracy in today's world.

This study aims to scrutinize Turkey’s uneasy democratization process during the post-Helsinki period (1999-2010). The research design of the thesis takes the form of a single case study as it seeks to critically link Turkey’s democratization problems with the wider theoretical literature on secularism, post-Islamism and democratization. Rather than witnessing the clear-cut victory of liberal democracy over non-democracy as espoused by Fukuyamian eschatology, the advent of the Post-Cold War Era witnessed the proliferation of hybrid grey zone which stood between the continuum of democracy and conventional non-democracy. As a result, many scholars opted to construct ‘hybrid regime typologies’ in order to capture the incongruous yet enduring coexistence of partially democratic and non-democratic features within each political unit. In line with contemporary developments in the democratization literature, this thesis opts to construct a multi-dimensional hybrid regime typology for the case of Turkey. Besides seeking to capture the core regime principles of the Kemalist one-party dictatorship (1923-1946) under the label of ‘laic-ethnocracy’, the theoretical framework of the thesis provides an assessable normative benchmark for delineating Turkey’s democratization trajectory since the initiation of the multi-party era (1946-1950). After demonstrating how Turkey’s successive ‘controlled transitions’ (1946-1997) consistently aimed at perpetuating ethnocratic hegemony and obstructing the democratic transformation of incompatible aspects of the Kemalist laicism, the thesis seeks to scrutinize the impact of the EU candidacy in shaping the pattern and outcome of the recent democratization process in the domestic arena. In this respect, the thesis underlines how the ongoing political ‘transition process’ during the post-Helsinki decade (1999-2009) qualitatively differs from all of the previous transitions which had been guided and forcefully controlled by traditional Kemalist state elites. Yet, the thesis also exposes the limited and partial commitment of the post-Islamist AKP government to forge the democratic transformation of Turkey’s enduring ‘laic-ethnocratic’ regime paradigm namely by assessing its reform performance towards the cultural rights of ethnic and belief-rights of the non-Sunni Muslim minorities (e.g., the sizeable Kurdish ethnic and Muslim-Alevi religious minority). Overall, the thesis characterizes Turkey’s ‘post-Helsinki transition’ process as a case of uneasy democratization. In this context, the term ‘uneasy democratization’ does not only highlight the inconsistencies of main domestic political actors in forging clear-cut democratic transformation of Turkey’s enduring ‘laic-ethnocracy’ regime paradigm, but also to a chronic failure to soothe the deeply-seated cleavages within the socio-political arena.

It has been ten years since the 26-year-old fruit seller set himself on fire to protest corruption in Tunisia. The street vendor created a wave of protests in the Arab world, a campaign for civil resistance, better known as the "Arab Spring". The protests led to the removal of long-standing authoritarian regimes in countries such as Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya. The civil resistance was a result of an economic crisis, high unemployment and corruption. The citizens of the arab world were demanding freedom of expression and greater civil rights. Tunisia became a successful example, where the country today is a complete democracy. In Egypt, the revolution also led to democratization, but for a short period of time. Egypt became more authoritarian after a coup led by the military. The other states failed and the consequences have been devastating with results of civil wars in Libya and Yemen. The main purpose of this essay was to sort out and understand why Tunisia succeeded to become a democracy after the arab spring 2010, while Egypt failed. A qualitative analysis with a comparative democratization study, composed of a most different system-design. The theoretical framework is based on Samuel Huntington (1991) “third wave democratization” and the author’s criteria on democracy, which includes regime legitimacy, economical modernization, and religious change.

This thesis analyze the democratization process of Mongolia and Ghana by applying a comparative case study. The study use Steven Levitsky and Lucan Ways theory of Western linkage and leverage to analyze the Mongolian and Ghanaian transition process, from being an non-democratic state to an consolidated democracy, through looking at the development of Western linkage and leverage and if there is any correlation between this development and the progress of democracy in respective state.The findings are that Western linkage in Mongolia never has been high but that the levels of Western linkage has developed positive in 1991 and 1995. The levels of Western leverage has been high in Mongolia since 1991. In Ghana the levels of Western linkage has been high and developed positive since at least 1996, but the levels of Western leverage has been low since 1996. Thus, the correlation between high levels of Western linkage and leverage and the democratization progress in respective state is weak, but there is some correlation between a positive development of Western linkage and the progress of democracy.

This is a study on Spain´s path from dictatorship towards democracy in the period of 1975 to 1982. The examination is based on Robert Dahl´s theory of democratization, fundamentally describing three alternate paths, moving a society from one of the states closed hegemony, inclusive hegemony or competitive oligarchy into the state polyarchy. According to Dahl, polyarchy is the closest ideal of a democracy. Dahl´s transformation paths are based on two dimensions: political competition and political inclusiveness. Prior to 1975, Spain was a closed hegemony and transformation could have gone directly to polyarchy or by way of either inclusive hegemony or competitive oligarchy. The results obtained in this study demonstrates that political competition and political inclusiveness developed in parallel in Spain, which was the prerequisite for the rapid transition. Most crucial was that the elections and the referendums occurred within a very short period of time. According to Dahl, elections can be categorized as political competition as well as political inclusiveness. Therefore, it can be concluded that Spain followed the path moving directly from closed hegemony into polyarchy without moving via inclusive hegemony or competitive oligarchy.

Orientador: Áurea de Carvalho Costa / Resumo: A presente Dissertação tem por tema a Educação de Jovens e Adultos no Brasil (EJA). Trata-se de uma pesquisa histórica e documental, tendo como foco o caso do CEEJA (Centro Estadual de Educação de Jovens e Adultos) do município de Botucatu/SP. Para o desenvolvimento da pesquisa estabelecemos como objetivo principal identificar e analisar a história das políticas de EJA no processo de democratização do acesso à escola e ao conhecimento, buscando apreender quais são os reais objetivos da EJA de formação da Educação na contemporaneidade. Inicialmente foi feito um levantamento bibliográfico das políticas voltadas a esta temática, até os anos 2000, em que sistematizamos a produção sobre a história da Educação de Jovens e Adultos no Brasil, suas características do ponto de vista político, pedagógico, histórico, sociológico e econômico. Em seguida analisamos as políticas educacionais da EJA, nos anos 2000, identificando os aspectos peculiares dessa política na conjuntura neoliberal, no Brasil, e os aspectos e impactos das orientações federais para a EJA, nos anos 2000, nas políticas regionais. Portanto, conclui-se neste estudo que o Estado neoliberal oferece à classe trabalhadora uma Educação ainda muito formal, certificadora, porém precária de conhecimentos que os emancipem. Assim, o avanço na política para essa classe foi mínimo, configurando-se assim historicamente o “calcanhar de Aquiles” do processo de democratização do ensino no país.A presente Dissertação tem por tema a Educa... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: This Master‘s Thesis focuses on the Youth and Adult Education in Brazil (Educação de Jovens e Adultos no Brasil – EJA). This is a historical and documental research about the youth and adult education, focusing on the case of the State Center for Youth and Adult Education (Centro Estadual de Educação de Jovens e Adultos – CEEJA) of the city of Botucatu/SP. For the development of the research, we set as main objective to identify and analyze the history of EJA policies in the democratization process of the access to school and knowledge, seeking to understand what are the real EJA objectives for the Education shaping in the contemporaneity. Initially, a bibliographical survey of the policies focused on this theme was carried out considering the years 2000, in which we organized all information related to Youth and Adult Education history in Brazil from a political, pedagogical, historical, sociological and economical point of view. Next, we analyzed EJA educational policies in the years 2000, identifying their peculiar aspects in the neoliberal conjuncture in Brazil, and aspects and impacts of the federal guidelines for the EJA in the years 2000 in the regional policies. Therefore, it is concluded in this study, the neoliberal state offers to the working class an education that is still very formal, aiming professional certification and precarious of knowledge that could emancipate them. Thus, the education growth for the working class was minimal, historically configuring the... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre