Is the

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Is the Third Wave Over?

• Paul Bacon
• SILS, Waseda University

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Is the Third Wave Over?

• When Huntington wrote his book The Third Wave
  in 1990, the wave was still near its peak.
• Today, we look at two articles written after the
  peak of the wave.
• Samuel Huntington After Twenty Years The Future
  of the Third Wave 1997.
• Thomas Carothers The End of the Transition
  Paradigm 2002.

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The Future of the Third Wave

• Huntington considers two main questions.
• Will democracy be consolidated in third wave
  countries?
• Will more countries become democratic in the
  future?
• To answer these questions, two key factors are
  important.
• Economic development
• Cultural receptivity

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Economic Development and Democracy

• Economic development has a strong positive effect
  on democratization. (Lipset)
• The future of democracy depends on the future of
  economic development. (Huntington)

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Why Econ. Development Helps Democracy

1. It leads to modernization. Greater literacy,
   education and urbanization expands the
   middle-class, which attempts to defend its
   interests.
2. Higher levels of distribution. In other words,
   the whole economic pie expands, which makes
   cooperation among people easier.

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Why Econ. Development Helps Democracy

• 3. It produces a more complex society, making it
  more difficult for states to assert control.
• 4.The reduction of state control over the economy
  enhances the emergence of powerful economic
  actors which are independent of the state.

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Why Econ. Development Helps Democracy

• 5. In the long term, economic development
  produces greater income equality.
• As the economy of a country develops, internal
  pressure to democratize the political system
  emerges.
• This period of pressure is called the Transition
  Zone

8
Cultural Receptivity to Democracy

• Democracy is a Western idea.
• To what extent can democracy, which is a Western
  product, take root in non-Western societies?

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Electoral and Liberal Democracy

• There are two kinds of democracies (as suggested
  by Larry Diamond).
• Electoral Democracies
• hold free, fair and periodic elections but civil
  rights are not well protected.
• Liberal Democracies
• protect and promote a significant range of civil
  liberties in addition to free and fair elections.
• In recent years, the number of electoral
  democracies has increased, but the number of
  liberal democracies has not.

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Elections are Not Enough

• Elections do not necessarily guarantee democratic
  or liberal outcomes.
• This can happen in the following ways
• Elections in non-Western societies can lead to
  the victory of anti-democratic groups.
• Politicians can often win elections by making
  appeals to voters based on nationalism, ethnicity
  or religion.

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Religion challenges to Secularism

• Also, religiously-oriented parties have
  challenged Western secularism.
• E.g. Turkey, India, Israel, countries in the
  former Yugoslavia, and Algeria.
• In Muslim countries, the choice is often between
  anti-Western democracy and non-democratic
  secularism.

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Culture and Democracy

• It is sometimes argued that democracy is not
  compatible with non-western culture.
• However, almost every civilization contains at
  least one liberal democracy.
• Therefore, liberal democracy is not incompatible
  with major non-Western cultures.

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Culture and Democracy

• Yet, many non-western countries are still
  electoral democracies, and are not obviously
  heading towards liberal democracy.
• Examples of this trend can be found in
• 10 Latin American countries
• 8 African countries
• 5 Orthodox Christian countries
• 5 Muslim countries.

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Culture and Democracy

• Some cultures have significant similarities with
  Western culture, while some cultures are very
  different.
• Latin America
• Africa
• Islam
• China

Similar to West
Different
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Political Strategy and Democracy Promotion

• There are two different strategies through which
  to promote democracy.
• Promote democracy in countries which are not
  currently democratic.
• Promote the consolidation of liberal democracy in
  existing electoral democracies.
• Although both strategies are desirable,
  Huntington argues that the second option provides
  a greater chance of success.

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Political Strategy and Democracy Promotion

• Civilizations similar to the West have a greater
  chance of democratic consolidation.
• Therefore, the first target should be Latin
  America, followed by Orthodox Christian
  countries.
• Also, the cooperative promotion of democracy
  amongst existing democracies is important.

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The End of the Transition Paradigm?

• Huntington is rather optimistic about the future
  consolidation of democracy.
• On the contrary, Thomas Carothers is much more
  pessimistic about the future of democracy.

Thomas Carothers
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Transition Paradigm No Longer Appropriate

• In the last quarter of the twentieth century,
  many countries moved away from authoritarian
  regime towards more liberal and democratic
  governance.

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Transitions in Seven Regions

• Southern Europe
• The fall of right-wing authoritarian regimes in
  the mid-1970s.
• Latin America
• The replacement of military dictatorships with
  elected civilian governments in the 70s and 80s.
• East and South Asia
• The decline of authoritarian rule from the
  mid-1980s.
• Eastern Europe
• The collapse of Communism at the end of the 1980s.

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Transitions in Seven Regions

• The break-up of the Soviet Union
• and the establishment of 15 post-Soviet republics
  in 1991.
• Sub-Saharan Africa
• The decline of one-party regimes in the first
  half of the 1990s.
• Middle East
• A weak but recognizable liberalizing trend in
  some countries in the 1990s.

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Outdated Paradigm

• Many scholars and policy-makers, especially in
  the US, recognized the three waves of democracy,
  and further argued that many third wave
  democracies were in a process of transition
  towards democracy. They regarded this trend as
  universal.
• Carothers argues that this way of thinking is no
  longer useful. In other words, even though a
  country embraces some democratic elements, this
  does not mean it will become a consolidated
  democracy.

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Assumptions of the Transition Paradigm

• Carothers identifies 5 core assumptions in this
  Transition Paradigm.
• Any country going away from democracy is
  considered to be moving towards democracy.
• Democratization occurs in three processes.
• Opening (crack in authoritarian regime)
• Breakthrough (collapse of authoritarian regime)
• Consolidation (becomes more stable and liberal)

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Assumptions of the Transition Paradigm

• In the transition to democracy, elections will be
  not just a foundation stone but a key generator
  over time of further democratic reforms.
• There are no-pre-conditions for democracy. All
  that is needed is a decision by political elites
  to move towards democracy.

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Assumptions of the Transition Paradigm

1. Third wave democratic transitions are being built
   on functioning, coherent states.

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The end of the transition paradigm?

• Carothers argues that it is time to assess the
  performance of the transition paradigm.
• Only 20 out of 100 countries identified as in
  transition are on the path to functioning
  democracy.
• Some regressed to authoritarianism, and many are
  neither dictatorial nor heading towards democracy.

Tier One (Very successful) Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovenia, Chile, Uruguay, Taiwan
Tier Two (Successful) Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Mexico, Brazil, Ghana The Philippines, South Korea
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The Grey Zone

• Carothers characterizes the transitional
  countries as in a Grey Zone
• Countries in the grey zone have some important
  elements of democracy, but also suffer from
  serious democratic deficits.

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Qualified Democracy

• A number of qualified democracy terms (such as
  semi- and electoral) have been coined to describe
  the countries in the grey zone .
• The problem is that analysts are trying to apply
  the transition paradigm by describing grey zone
  countries as democracy, when they might
  actually be heading towards something other than
  democracy.

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Types of regime in the Grey Zone

• Feckless Pluralism
• Frequent political alternation, causing political
  instability and postponing serious problems.
• Most common in Latin America.
• Dominant Power Politics
• One group dominates politics and its replacement
  is unlikely.
• Common in Sub-Saharan Africa, Former Soviet Union
  countries, and Middle East.

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• Both types of regime, feckless plural and
  dominant power political, can move to other
  categories, such as liberal democratic and
  authoritarian.

Feckless Pluralism
Liberal Democracy
Authoritarianism
Dominant Power Politics
Grey Zone
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Carothers Opinion

• Carothers is suggesting that the transition
  paradigm does not apply to most developing
  countries.
• what is often thought of as an uneasy,
  precarious middle ground between full-fledged
  democracy and outright dictatorship is actually
  the most common political condition today of
  countries in the developing world and the
  post-communist world.