12th Mediterranean Research Meeting of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute (EUI), Florence and Montecatini Terme, Italy, 6-9 April 2011
Call for papers for Workshop 7: "Breakdowns of Democracy Revisited: Transitions from Liberal-Democratic to Authoritarian Regimes around the Mediterranean Littoral"
www.eui.eu/DepartmentsAndCentres/RobertSchumanCentre/Research/InternationalTransnationalRelations/MediterraneanProgramme/MRM/MRM2011/Index.aspx
From the workshop description: "Studies of democratization have matured greatly over the last two decades [...]. Nevertheless, early expectations that new democracies would survive and flourish have run up against significant cases in which political reform has quickly stalled out or regressed to liberalized authoritarian rule. This development has opened the door to systematic investigations of the circumstances under which initial liberalization programs have failed to gain momentum, most notably in Tunisia and Jordan. Such studies raise the crucial question of whether democratization can be assumed to move in only one direction. History suggests that liberal democracies on occasion collapse and get replaced by highly illiberal regimes. Classic cases of democratic breakdown include Italy in the early 1920s and Germany a decade later.
"Less fully investigated are parallel instances of democratic collapse in Spain, Greece and Turkey. Completely ignored are countries whose brief liberal-democratic eras have been overlooked by political scientists and historians. A number of important examples of the transition away from liberal democracy can be found in the MENA [Middle East and North Africa region]. Among these stand Egypt, Syria, Iraq and perhaps even Libya, not to mention the aborted transition to illiberal governance in Lebanon of the late 1950s. Focused comparisons between well-studied episodes of the breakdown of liberal political orders along the northern shores of the Mediterranean and largely overlooked instances to the south and east are certain to enhance our understanding of the causal factors and processes that lead democracies to be supplanted by authoritarian regimes.
"Scholarship on the topic has lain virtually dormant since the late 1970s. [...] This workshop proposes not only to bring a wide range of additional, long-overlooked cases into the literature on democratic collapse but also to begin the crucial task of formulating well-structured comparisons across different empirical examples. Contributions which focus on countries that have so far been ignored in the academic literature, particularly ones situated in the MENA region, will be expected to make reference to analyses of better-studied examples. Given the peculiarities of the German model, the organizers anticipate that the experience of Italy during the first two decades of the twentieth century is likely to prove particularly thought-provoking, and would therefore welcome proposals from specialists in Italian history and politics. Contributions intended primarily to advance the theory of liberal-democratic breakdown are certainly encouraged, but will be expected to rest on a firm empirical foundation.
"Liberal experiments in the MENA during the 1920s and 1930s are routinely dismissed as too imperfect to be included in discussions of the structure, workings and transformation of democratic governance. The workshop organizers firmly reject such dismissiveness toward the variety of party-based, electoral systems that one finds throughout the Arab world in the decades before the wave of military-led revolutions washed across the region. Instead, they hope that detailed explorations of the liberal-democratic moment in the MENA, unbiased by what E.P. Thompson might call 'the enormous condescension of posterity,' will offer new insight into the dynamics of politics in this part of the world, while at the same time reinvigoring conceptual debates about the dynamics of democratization on the basis of evidence drawn from all shores of the Mediterranean."
Please find detailed instructions on how to submit a paper proposal for this workshop on the conference website (see particularly full call for papers and online form). The procedures and requirements are uncommonly stringent.
Deadline: 15 July 2010
Only for workshop-related questions, contact directly the workshop directors, Fred Lawson (Mills College, California): lawson@mills.edu
and Abdelwahab Shaker (Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Egypt): abdelwahab.shaker@bibalex.org
Showing posts with label Iraq. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iraq. Show all posts
29 June 2010
11 May 2010
Article: As democracy unravels at home, the west thuggishly exports it elsewhere
The "Guardian" newspaper on 8 April 2010 published an op-ed piece by Simon Jenkins titled "As democracy unravels at home, the west thuggishly exports it elsewhere". The subtitle or lead reads: "While the US and Britain slide towards oligarchy, the forced elections in Afghanistan and Iraq have brought no good".
The article can be read free of charge here:
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/08/democracy-iraq-afghanistan-britain-us
Excerpts: "The west's proudest export to the Islamic world this past decade has been democracy. That is, not real democracy, which is too complicated, but elections. They have been exported at the point of a gun and a missile to Iraq and Afghanistan, to 'nation-build' these states and hence 'defeat terror'. When apologists are challenged to show some good resulting from the shambles, they invariably reply: 'It has given Iraqis and Afghans freedom to vote.' [...] Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died and millions been driven from their homes [...]. The import of democracy has so far just inflamed local tension and fuelled fundamentalism. Like precious porcelain, elections were exported without instructions on their care. In the absence of adequate security, they are little more than tribal plebiscites. [...]
"As the joke in Kabul goes, as long as the west pretends to uphold his regime, Karzai must 'pretend to be Swedish'. He is America's exhibit A for world democracy. [...] Democracy in both America and Britain is [...] said to be sliding towards oligarchy, with increasing overtones of autocracy. Money and its power over technology are making elections unfair. The military-industrial complex is as powerful as ever, [...] democracy is not in good shape. How strange to choose this moment to export it, least of all to countries that have never experienced it in their history. The west not only exports the stuff, it does so with massive, thuggish violence, the antithesis of how self-government should mature in any polity. The tortured justification in Iraq and Afghanistan is that elections will somehow sanctify a 'war against terrorism' waged on someone else's soil. The resulting death and destruction have been appalling. Never can an end, however noble, have so failed to justify the means of achieving it. [...]
"A system of government that they [Britons] have spent two centuries evolving and still not perfected is being rammed down the throats of poor and insecure people, who are then hectored for not handling it properly. Why should they? The invasions of their countries was not their choice. They did not ask to be a model for Britain's moral exhibitionism. They did not plead for their villages to be target practice for western special forces. [...] [T]he only certainty for Karzai is that, one day, Nato will get fed up and leave him to his fate, as it is now leaving Maliki in Baghdad. If he wants to live, he must make his peace with Afghans, not Americans, and that means on Afghan terms. Free and fair elections and a stop to corruption will have no part to play in that survival game. Democracy has been greatly oversold."
Sir Simon David Jenkins, a journalist and book author, is the former editor of "The Times" and the "Evening Standard".
The article can be read free of charge here:
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/08/democracy-iraq-afghanistan-britain-us
Excerpts: "The west's proudest export to the Islamic world this past decade has been democracy. That is, not real democracy, which is too complicated, but elections. They have been exported at the point of a gun and a missile to Iraq and Afghanistan, to 'nation-build' these states and hence 'defeat terror'. When apologists are challenged to show some good resulting from the shambles, they invariably reply: 'It has given Iraqis and Afghans freedom to vote.' [...] Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died and millions been driven from their homes [...]. The import of democracy has so far just inflamed local tension and fuelled fundamentalism. Like precious porcelain, elections were exported without instructions on their care. In the absence of adequate security, they are little more than tribal plebiscites. [...]
"As the joke in Kabul goes, as long as the west pretends to uphold his regime, Karzai must 'pretend to be Swedish'. He is America's exhibit A for world democracy. [...] Democracy in both America and Britain is [...] said to be sliding towards oligarchy, with increasing overtones of autocracy. Money and its power over technology are making elections unfair. The military-industrial complex is as powerful as ever, [...] democracy is not in good shape. How strange to choose this moment to export it, least of all to countries that have never experienced it in their history. The west not only exports the stuff, it does so with massive, thuggish violence, the antithesis of how self-government should mature in any polity. The tortured justification in Iraq and Afghanistan is that elections will somehow sanctify a 'war against terrorism' waged on someone else's soil. The resulting death and destruction have been appalling. Never can an end, however noble, have so failed to justify the means of achieving it. [...]
"A system of government that they [Britons] have spent two centuries evolving and still not perfected is being rammed down the throats of poor and insecure people, who are then hectored for not handling it properly. Why should they? The invasions of their countries was not their choice. They did not ask to be a model for Britain's moral exhibitionism. They did not plead for their villages to be target practice for western special forces. [...] [T]he only certainty for Karzai is that, one day, Nato will get fed up and leave him to his fate, as it is now leaving Maliki in Baghdad. If he wants to live, he must make his peace with Afghans, not Americans, and that means on Afghan terms. Free and fair elections and a stop to corruption will have no part to play in that survival game. Democracy has been greatly oversold."
Sir Simon David Jenkins, a journalist and book author, is the former editor of "The Times" and the "Evening Standard".
08 March 2010
Article: The Democratic Domino Theory: An Empirical Investigation
Peter T. Leeson and Andrea M. Dean, "The Democratic Domino Theory: An Empirical Investigation" ("American Journal of Political Science", 53 [3], July 2009: pp. 533-51).
Abstract: "According to the democratic domino theory, increases or decreases in democracy in one country spread and 'infect' neighboring countries, increasing or decreasing their democracy in turn. Using spatial econometrics and panel data that cover over 130 countries between 1850 and 2000, this article empirically investigates the democratic domino theory. We find that democratic dominoes do in fact fall as the theory contends. However, these dominoes fall significantly 'lighter' than the importance of this model suggests. Countries 'catch' only about 11% of the increases or decreases in their average geographic neighbors' increases or decreases in democracy. This finding has potentially important foreign policy implications. The 'lightness' with which democratic dominoes fall suggests that even if foreign military intervention aimed at promoting democracy in undemocratic countries succeeds in democratizing these nations, intervention is likely to have only a small effect on democracy in their broader regions." (originally all in italics)
The full text of the article is available free of charge here:
http://peterleeson.homestead.com/Democratic_Domino_Theory.pdf
Some excerpts: "Most recently, a democratic domino idea has been used to justify American intervention in Iraq and the Middle East [...]. Despite this idea's importance guiding global foreign affairs, relatively little research has investigated whether in fact changes in democracy spread between geographic neighbors as this theory hypothesizes. Indeed, surprisingly few papers directly address the domino theory as a general proposition at all. [...] Our results point to several conclusions. First, foreign policy should not pretend that democratic increases in one country will lead, in the words of President Bush, to a 'democratic revolution' in the larger region it is situated in. [...] Although there are a handful of intervention successes that succeeded in promoting democracy [...] most U.S. attempts at imposing liberal democracy abroad have failed."
Peter T. Leeson is BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism in the Department of Economics at George Mason University.
Andrea M. Dean is a Ken and Randy Kendrick Fellow in the Department of Economics at West Virginia University.
Abstract: "According to the democratic domino theory, increases or decreases in democracy in one country spread and 'infect' neighboring countries, increasing or decreasing their democracy in turn. Using spatial econometrics and panel data that cover over 130 countries between 1850 and 2000, this article empirically investigates the democratic domino theory. We find that democratic dominoes do in fact fall as the theory contends. However, these dominoes fall significantly 'lighter' than the importance of this model suggests. Countries 'catch' only about 11% of the increases or decreases in their average geographic neighbors' increases or decreases in democracy. This finding has potentially important foreign policy implications. The 'lightness' with which democratic dominoes fall suggests that even if foreign military intervention aimed at promoting democracy in undemocratic countries succeeds in democratizing these nations, intervention is likely to have only a small effect on democracy in their broader regions." (originally all in italics)
The full text of the article is available free of charge here:
http://peterleeson.homestead.com/Democratic_Domino_Theory.pdf
Some excerpts: "Most recently, a democratic domino idea has been used to justify American intervention in Iraq and the Middle East [...]. Despite this idea's importance guiding global foreign affairs, relatively little research has investigated whether in fact changes in democracy spread between geographic neighbors as this theory hypothesizes. Indeed, surprisingly few papers directly address the domino theory as a general proposition at all. [...] Our results point to several conclusions. First, foreign policy should not pretend that democratic increases in one country will lead, in the words of President Bush, to a 'democratic revolution' in the larger region it is situated in. [...] Although there are a handful of intervention successes that succeeded in promoting democracy [...] most U.S. attempts at imposing liberal democracy abroad have failed."
Peter T. Leeson is BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism in the Department of Economics at George Mason University.
Andrea M. Dean is a Ken and Randy Kendrick Fellow in the Department of Economics at West Virginia University.
06 March 2010
Article: Iraqi Elections Show America's Wrong Ideas about Democracy's Power
On Sunday, 7 March, the Washington Post will carry an article by Marina Ottaway, the Director of the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, titled "American foreign policy shouldn't focus on elections, in Iraq or elsewher" [sic]. For some reasons, the article is already online:
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/05/AR2010030501554.html
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace also published the article early on its website, under the alternative title "Iraqi Elections Show America's Wrong Ideas about Democracy's Power":
www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=40299
Excerpts (from the Washington Post): "Why are we so focused on Iraq's parliamentary election [this Sunday] – to the point that it may dictate how long American forces remain enmeshed in war? Well, we've been in love with foreign elections for two decades now. Since votes in Central and Eastern Europe came to symbolize victory for democracy over communism, the United States has looked to elections as turning points [...]. Foreign policy by election is appealing for simple reasons: We are good at organizing elections. An election result is concrete. Unfortunately, elections aren't all we've built them into. They are not defining moments, but only a small part of much larger and more complicated stories, and they can even, at times, keep democracy from taking root.
"No matter; European countries and the United Nations have joined America in raising the expectations for elections far beyond what they can deliver. While 'elections do not a democracy make' has become a common refrain in Washington and European capitals, in reality the pressure to hold votes, as soon as possible, in countries that are transitioning from autocracy or war remains extremely high. [...] The determination to spread democracy by elections continued in U.S. and U.N. policy toward African countries that were pushed, cajoled and occasionally blackmailed by the threat of suspended aid into holding multiparty balloting. [...]
"No matter how free and fair, elections can reflect only the power shifts that have already taken place, and are not the cause of these shifts. [...] Typically, dozens – or in the case of Iraq, hundreds – of parties form to compete in elections, but they almost always fail against well-established political forces. [...] The groups with the greatest success at the ballot box have usually been those appealing to nationalist sentiments or, more dangerously, to ethnic identities. [...] In Afghanistan, [...] old autocratic trends are reasserting themselves under the democratic veneer [....] Iraq will remain a country riven by sectarian and ethnic divisions [...]. Once the campaign billboards come down in Baghdad, the same politicians will make deals and the same groups will try to make up for their lack of political clout with violence."
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/05/AR2010030501554.html
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace also published the article early on its website, under the alternative title "Iraqi Elections Show America's Wrong Ideas about Democracy's Power":
www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=40299
Excerpts (from the Washington Post): "Why are we so focused on Iraq's parliamentary election [this Sunday] – to the point that it may dictate how long American forces remain enmeshed in war? Well, we've been in love with foreign elections for two decades now. Since votes in Central and Eastern Europe came to symbolize victory for democracy over communism, the United States has looked to elections as turning points [...]. Foreign policy by election is appealing for simple reasons: We are good at organizing elections. An election result is concrete. Unfortunately, elections aren't all we've built them into. They are not defining moments, but only a small part of much larger and more complicated stories, and they can even, at times, keep democracy from taking root.
"No matter; European countries and the United Nations have joined America in raising the expectations for elections far beyond what they can deliver. While 'elections do not a democracy make' has become a common refrain in Washington and European capitals, in reality the pressure to hold votes, as soon as possible, in countries that are transitioning from autocracy or war remains extremely high. [...] The determination to spread democracy by elections continued in U.S. and U.N. policy toward African countries that were pushed, cajoled and occasionally blackmailed by the threat of suspended aid into holding multiparty balloting. [...]
"No matter how free and fair, elections can reflect only the power shifts that have already taken place, and are not the cause of these shifts. [...] Typically, dozens – or in the case of Iraq, hundreds – of parties form to compete in elections, but they almost always fail against well-established political forces. [...] The groups with the greatest success at the ballot box have usually been those appealing to nationalist sentiments or, more dangerously, to ethnic identities. [...] In Afghanistan, [...] old autocratic trends are reasserting themselves under the democratic veneer [....] Iraq will remain a country riven by sectarian and ethnic divisions [...]. Once the campaign billboards come down in Baghdad, the same politicians will make deals and the same groups will try to make up for their lack of political clout with violence."
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