The process through which authoritarian regimes are transformed into democratic regimes is called democratization. It must be kept analytically distinct both from the process of liberalization and from the process of transition. Liberalization is simply the decompression of the authoritarian regime taking place within its framework. It is controlled by the authoritarian rulers themselves. It consists in the relaxation of the most heinous features of authoritarianism: the end of torture, the liberation of political prisoners, the lifting of censorship and the toleration of some opposition. Liberalization may be the first stage in the transition to democracy. However, the transition to democracy truly begins when the authoritarian rulers are no longer capable of controlling domestic political developments and are obliged to relinquish political power. At that point, an explosion of groups, associations, movements and parties signals that the transition has started.
There is no guarantee that, once begun, a transition from authoritarianism will necessarily lead to a democratic regime. Though it will simply be impossible to restore the previous authoritarian regime, in many cases the political transition will be long, protracted and ineffective. In other cases, the major features of a democratic regime will come into being. Usually, political parties re-emerge representing the old political memories of the country or new parties are created to represent the dissenting groups and the adamant oppositions during the authoritarian regime. Depending on the tenure of the previous authoritarian regimes, there will appear different leadership groups. If the authoritarian regime has lasted for some decades, then few old political leaders retain enough social popularity and political support to be able to play a significant role in the transition and new young leaders will quickly replace them. If the authoritarian regime has lasted less than a decade, it will be possible for the political leaders ousted by the authoritarian regime to restructure their political organizations and to reacquire governmental power. During the process of democratization new institutions will be created. The once atomized and compressed society enters into a process of self-reorganization and provides the social basis for new political actors.
The reorganization of society has proved easier in non-communist authoritarian regimes. In former communist authoritarian regimes, all social organizations have been destroyed by the communist party. Only groups supporting the communist party and dominated by it were allowed to function. Few dissenting associations and movements were tolerated and allowed to be active in politics.
On the contrary, in southern European and Latin American countries, the various authoritarian regimes never succeeded in destroying all forms of pluralism, or organized groups. Moreover, their rate of economic growth, though limited, created the premises of a pluralist society almost ready-made for the process of democratization. Eastern European communist authoritarian regimes collapsed in a sort of sociopolitical void. Only in Poland a powerful organized movement existed, Solidarnosc, that could inherit political power. Otherwise, citizens’ forums and umbrella associations had to emerge while former communists slowly reorganized themselves. For these reasons, free elections have determined a new distribution of political power in eastern Europe without yet stabilizing a democratic regime.
According to Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington (1991) so far there have been three waves of democratization and two reversals: the first wave took place from 1828 to 1926 and the first reverse wave from 1922 to 1942. The second wave appeared from 1943 to 1962 and the second reverse wave from 1958 to 1975. Finally, the third wave materialized starting from 1974 and is still going on. The overall process of democratization has moved from the Anglo-Saxon and northern European countries to the southern European rim and to the Latin American continent. It has now reached all eastern European and several Asian countries. Democratization is no longer a culturally bounded phenomenon and, contrary to previous periods, it has found a largely supportive international climate. Though not all newly created democratic regimes are politically stable and socioeconomically effective, they appear to have won the bitter and prolonged struggle against authoritarian actors and mentalities. Only Muslim fundamentalist movements now represent a powerful and dogmatic alternative to the attempts to democratize contemporary regimes.
Gianfranco Pasguino
University of Bologna
Reference
Huntington, S.P. (1991) The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century, London.
Further Reading
O’Donnell, G., Schmitter, P. and Whitehead, L. (eds) (1986) Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Prospects for Democracy, Baltimore, MD.
Vanhanen, T. (1990) The Process of Demoralization: A Comparative Study of 147 States, 1980–1990, New York.
