Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe

Juan J. Linz, Alfred Stepan

JHU Press, Aug 16, 1996 - Political Science - 479 pages

Since their classic volume The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes was published in 1978, Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan have increasingly focused on the questions of how, in the modern world, nondemocratic regimes can be eroded and democratic regimes crafted. In Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, they break new ground in numerous areas. They reconceptualize the major types of modern nondemocratic regimes and point out for each type the available paths to democratic transition and the tasks of democratic consolidation. They argue that, although "nation-state" and "democracy" often have conflicting logics, multiple and complementary political identities are feasible under a common roof of state-guaranteed rights. They also illustrate how, without an effective state, there can be neither effective citizenship nor successful privatization. Further, they provide criteria and evidence for politicians and scholars alike to distinguish between democratic consolidation and pseudo-democratization, and they present conceptually driven survey data for the fourteen countries studied.

Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation contains the first systematic comparative analysis of the process of democratic consolidation in southern Europe and the southern cone of South America, and it is the first book to ground post-Communist Europe within the literature of comparative politics and democratic theory.

Contents

• Democracy and Its Arenas: 3
• Stateness Nationalism and Democratization: 16
• Modern Nondemocratic Regimes: 38
• The Implications of Prior Regime Type for Transition Paths and Consolidation Tasks: 55
• Actors and Contexts: 66
• Southern Europe Completed Consolidations: 85
• The Paradigmatic Case of Reforma PactadaRuptura Pactada Spain: 87
• From Interim Government to Simultaneous Transition and Consolidation Portugal: 116
• Crisis of a Nonhierarchical Military Regime Greece: 130
• Southern Europe Concluding Reflections: 139
• South America Constrained Transitions: 149
• A RiskProne Consolidated Democracy Uruguay: 151
• Crises of Efficacy Legitimacy and Democratic State Presence Brazil: 166
• From an Impossible to a Possible Democratic Game Argentina: 190
• Incomplete Transition Near Consolidation? Chile: 205
• South America Concluding Reflections: 219
• PostCommunist Europe The Most Complex Paths and Tasks: 231
• PostCommunisms Prehistories: 235
• Authoritarian Communism Ethical Civil Society and Ambivalent Political Society Poland: 255
• Varieties of PostTotalitarian Regimes Hungary Czechoslovakia Bulgaria: 293
• The Effects of TotalitarianismcumSultanism on Democratic Transition Romania: 344
• The Problems of Stateness and Transitions The USSR and Russia: 366
• When Democracy and the NationState Are Conflicting Logics Estonia and Latvia: 401
• PostCommunist Europe Concluding Comparative Reflections: 434
• Index: 459

About the author

Juan J. Linz is Sterling Professor Emeritus of Political and Social Science at Yale University. In addition to the works coauthored and coedited with Professor Stepan, Professor Linz has published works on democracy, democratization, and comparative politics, including Sultanistic Regimes, also published by Johns Hopkins.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe; A Johns Hopkins paperback; Political science / the Johns Hopkins University Press. A Johns Hopkins Paperback
• Authors: Juan J. Linz, Alfred Stepan
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: JHU Press, 1996
• ISBN: 0801851580, 9780801851582
• Length: 479 pages
• Subjects: Political Science / Comparative Politics; Political Science / Political Ideologies / Communism, Post-Communism & Socialism