Transitology

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In political science and in international and comparative law and economics, transitology is the study of the process of change from one political regime to another, mainly from authoritarian regimes to democratic ones rooted in conflicting and consensual varieties of economic liberalism. [1]

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Transitology tries to explain processes of democratization in a variety of contexts, from bureaucratic authoritarianism and other forms of dictatorship in Latin America, southern Europe and northern Africa to postcommunist developments in eastern Europe. The debate has become something of an academic "turf-war" between comparative studies and area studies scholars, while highlighting several problematic features of social science methodology, including generalization, an overemphasis on elite attitudes and behavior, Eurocentrism, the role of history in explaining causality, and the inability to produce testable hypotheses. [2]

Transitology explains the different pathways to and from democracy as explained in the Massive Open Online Course MOOC on Transitology set up by Anja Mihr and launched by the Global Campus for Human Rights . In this training course Transitology is explained as a concept and analytical framework applied in political and social science to analyse political regime change in either ways, democratic or autocratic. Successful democratic transition, is one pathway how democratic institutions slowly consolidate and strengthen over time. Transitology also explains why weak and corrupted democratic institutions fail and backslide into authoritarian political practices and, subsequently, autocracies.

Notable academics

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In political science, a political system means the type of political organization that can be recognized, observed or otherwise declared by a state.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Democratization</span> A society becoming more democratic

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Modernization theory is used to explain the process of modernization within societies. The "classical" theories of modernization of the 1950s and 1960s drew on sociological analyses of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and a partial reading of Max Weber, and were strongly influenced by the writings of Harvard sociologist Talcott Parsons. Modernization theory was a dominant paradigm in the social sciences in the 1950s and 1960s, then went into a deep eclipse. It made a comeback after 1991, when Francis Fukuyama wrote about the end of the Cold War as confirmation on modernization theory and more generally of universal history. But the theory remains a controversial model.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comparative politics</span> Field in political science

Comparative politics is a field in political science characterized either by the use of the comparative method or other empirical methods to explore politics both within and between countries. Substantively, this can include questions relating to political institutions, political behavior, conflict, and the causes and consequences of economic development. When applied to specific fields of study, comparative politics may be referred to by other names, such as comparative government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seymour Martin Lipset</span> American sociologist (1922–2006)

Seymour Martin Lipset was an American sociologist and political scientist. He was the president of the American Political Science Association. His major work was in the fields of political sociology, trade union organization, social stratification, public opinion, and the sociology of intellectual life. He also wrote extensively about the conditions for democracy in comparative perspective. A socialist in his early life, Lipset later moved to the right, and was considered to be one of the first neoconservatives.

Juan José Linz Storch de Gracia was a German-born Spanish sociologist and political scientist specializing in comparative politics. He was Sterling Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Political Science at Yale University and an honorary member of the Scientific Council at the Juan March Institute. He is best known for his work on authoritarian political regimes and democratization.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guillermo O'Donnell</span> Argentine political scientist (1936–2011)

Guillermo Alberto O'Donnell Ure was a prominent Argentine political scientist who specialized in comparative politics and Latin American politics. He spent most of his career working in Argentina and the United States, and who made lasting contributions to theorizing on authoritarianism and democratization, democracy and the state, and the politics of Latin America. His brother is Pacho O'Donnell.

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Dankwart Alexander Rustow was a professor of political science and sociology specializing in comparative politics. He is prominent for his research on democratization. In his seminal 1970 article 'Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model,' Rustow broke from the prevailing schools of thought on how countries became democratic. Disagreeing with the heavy focus on necessary social and economic pre-conditions for democracy, he argued that national unity was the necessary precondition for democracy.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philippe C. Schmitter</span> American political scientist (born 1936)

Philippe C. Schmitter is an American political scientist specializing in comparative politics. He is Emeritus Professor of the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute.

A hybrid regime is a type of political system often created as a result of an incomplete democratic transition from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one. Hybrid regimes are categorized as having a combination of autocratic features with democratic ones and can simultaneously hold political repressions and regular elections. Hybrid regimes are commonly found in developing countries with abundant natural resources such as petro-states. Although these regimes experience civil unrest, they may be relatively stable and tenacious for decades at a time. There has been a rise in hybrid regimes since the end of the Cold War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Embedded democracy</span>

Embedded democracy is a form of government in which democratic governance is secured by democratic partial regimes. The term "embedded democracy" was coined by political scientists Wolfgang Merkel, Hans-Jürgen Puhle, and Aurel Croissant, who identified "five interdependent partial regimes" necessary for an embedded democracy: electoral regime, political participation, civil rights, horizontal accountability, and the power of the elected representatives to govern. The five internal regimes work together to check the power of the government, while external regimes also help to secure and stabilize embedded democracies. Together, all the regimes ensure that an embedded democracy is guided by the three fundamental principles of freedom, equality, and control.

Democracy and economic growth and development have had a strong correlative and interactive relationship throughout history. While evidence of this relationship's existence is irrefutable, economists' and historians' opinions of its exact nature have been sharply split, hence the latter has been the subject of many debates and studies.

Critical juncture theory focuses on critical junctures, i.e., large, rapid, discontinuous changes, and the long-term causal effect or historical legacy of these changes. Critical junctures are turning points that alter the course of evolution of some entity. Critical juncture theory seeks to explain both (1) the historical origin and maintenance of social order, and (2) the occurrence of social change through sudden, big leaps.

References

  1. Philippe C. Schmitter, "Reflections on "transitology" : before and after," pp. 71-86, in Daniel M. BRINKS, Marcelo LEIRAS and Scott MAINWARING (eds), Reflections on uneven democracies: the legacy of Guillermo O'Donnell. Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014.
  2. Bunce, Valerie (1995). "Should Transitologists be Grounded?". Slavic Review. 54 (1): 111–127. doi:10.2307/2501122. JSTOR   2501122.
  3. Rustow, D.A. (1970). Transitions to Democracy: Towards a Dynamic Model. Comparative Politics, 2(3), pp. 337–367.
  4. Guillermo O'Donnell & Philippe Schmitter. Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore & London: Johns Hopkins UP, 1986).
  5. Lipset, Seymour Martin (March 1959). "Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy". The American Political Science Review 53 (1): 69–105.
  6. Carothers, T. (2002). The end of the transition paradigm. Journal of Democracy, 13(1), 5-21.
  7. The End of the Transition Paradigm, Journal of Democracy, vol. 13, no 1, January 2002.