"ELITES & DEMOCRATIC CONSOLIDATION IN LATIN AMER. & SOUTHERN EUROPE" (JOHN HIGLEY & RICHARD GUNTHER, EDS.).   Term Paper ID:20736 Click to get this paper

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Paper Abstract: Critical review of essays on theories & models for transition to democracy. Paper Introduction: John Higley and Richard Gunther have gathered together in their book Elites and Democratic Consolidation in Latin America and Southern Europe essays by a distinguished group of scholars examining the transition to democracy in Latin American countries in recent years with perspective developed around the theoretical perspective developed and explained by Higley and Gunther. The articles taken as a whole are comprehensive, covering the countries in latin America to which the thesis applies, and doing so in a way that elucidates the specific role of democratic consolidation. The book also provides a historical context against which to measure the essays, the democratic beginnings in these countries, and over time the course taken by democracy in the region. The editors offer a justification for producing another Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. In the main,the authors would agree with Lijphart about the relative stability of thedifferent types of regime, and the descriptions they offer of stabledemocracies show regimes shifting from centrifugal democracy to a morestable consociational democracy of even depoliticized democracy, wherepossible. [4]Ibid., 3 . Lijphart drew on his study of politics in the Netherlandsto challenge the pluralist theory and to argue that the theory isinaccurate in ascribing negative consequences to fragmentation in politicalsystems: "He argues that under some circumstances, isolation of politicalsubgroups may preclude conflict and enhance stability."[7] Theconsociational democracy model developed by Lijphart grew out of hisattempt to amend Gabriel Almond's four political system classifications: 1)Anglo-American; 2) Continental European; 3) Preindustrial; and 4)Totalitarian. The analysis of these countriesoffered in the concluding overview helps greatly to understand how all fitinto the hypothesis and how the processes described by the editors and thenexplored by the authors actually work. 2) Centripetal democracy is the healthy type whose stability is basedon a homogeneous political culture, and it is not threatened by normalinter-party competition. [2]Ibid., xi. Aspects of Modernization and Consociationalism: Lebanon as an Exploratory Test Case. A consolidated democracyis defined as a regime that meets all the procedural criteria of ademocracy and in which all politically significant groups acceptestablished political institutions and adhere to democratic rules of thegame. Democracy is defined in terms of the procedural criteria developed byRobert Dahl: a political regime characterized by free and open elections,with relatively low barriers to participation, genuine politicalcompetition, and wide protection of civil liberties. These are among the questions addressed bythe essays in this book in terms of recent Latin American and SouthernEuropean politics: We advance and explore distinctive explanations for the occurrence and nonoccurrence of democratic consolidation in these countries. This corresponds to Almond's Anglo-American. The essence of the argument is contained in the firstchapter, the introduction by Burton, Gunther, and Higley, while theremainder of the essays offer an application of the concepts in specificsituations, leading to a final essay in which Burton, Gunther, and Higleymake an explicit comparison between Latin American and South Europeansituations. This type should have the most stability,followed in descending order by the centripetal, consociational, andcentrifugal.[8] The essays in Higley and Gunther's book effectively analyze thestructure and operation of elites in the countries of Latin America and inSouth European nations including Spain, Portugal, and Italy. [3]Michael Burton, Richard Gunther, and John Higley, "Introduction:elite transformations and democratic regimes," in Higley and Gunther, op.cit., 1-5. The book also provides a historical context against whichto measure the essays, the democratic beginnings in these countries, andover time the course taken by democracy in the region. [5]Ibid., 31. 4) Depoliticized democracy is a system in which the elite behavior isstill coalescent as in consociational systems but which no longer has afragmented political culture. Lincoln, Nebraska: Middle East Research Group, 1975.Higley, John and Richard Gunther. Constitutional Reform and the Apartheid State. For consolidation to occur, we argue, elites that had previously been "disunified" must become "consensually unified" in regard to the basic procedures and norms by which politics will henceforth be played.[2] The editors, along with Michael Burton, explore the mechanics oftransformation and the elements involved in democratization before thedifferent authors represented in this volume address the same basic issuesin different countries. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.----------------------- [1]John Higley and Richard Gunther, Elites and Democratic Consolidationin Latin America and Southern Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press,1992), x. John Higley and Richard Gunther have gathered together in their bookElites and Democratic Consolidation in Latin America and Southern Europeessays by a distinguished group of scholars examining the transition todemocracy in Latin American countries in recent years with perspectivedeveloped around the theoretical perspective developed and explained byHigley and Gunther. The book offers an interestingperspective for analyzing democratic regimes and for taking a differentapproach to categorizing levels of democracy while also showing how thoselevels developed and how they compare with one another. The authorshypothesize that the stability and long-term prospects for the survival ofdemocratic regimes are greatly enhanced when consolidation is achieved andthus when there is broad elite consensual unity within a regime.[4] Theauthors note that there are other scholars who agree with their valuationof the general importance of elite accommodation and consensus in thefunctioning of stable democratic regimes, and they cite the case of ArendLijphart's concept of consociationalism, which shares 1) an appreciation ofthe importance of relatively inclusive, behind-the-scenes negotiationsamong competing elites, and 2) the contention that elite awareness of thepotential for destructive political conflict is an important factor causingelites to take extraordinary steps to restrain current and futureconflicts.[5] The consociational democracy model is illuminative of the meaning inthe essays in this book, and it is a model proposed by a school of writerswho take issue with the pluralist proposition which holds that stabledemocracy is not viable in divided plural societies because they lack thesupposedly essential cross-cutting cleavages and multiple groupaffiliations thought to ensure viability in an open, pluralistic society.The consociationalist approach also challenges the tendency to equatedemocracy with majority rule and instead prescribes alternative norms ofdecision-making better suited to pluralist societies: Consociational democracy thus implies the need to modify both pluralist theory and conventional notions of democratic government.[6]The theory of consociational democracy has been developed extensively byArend Lijphart and has been applied to various pluralist democracies todemonstrate the dynamics of the theory and the ways in which it operates ina given context. Lijphart argued that the second of these, ContinentalEuropean, was inadequate to explain political behavior in a number ofsmaller European democracies, including Lijphart's native Holland.Lijphart therefore offered his own typology: 1) Centrifugal democracy, which parallels Almond's ContinentalEuropean, is a political system characterized by a fragmented politicalculture that leads to immobilism and instability. In such regimes, there is steadfast support for the existingdemocratic regime.[3] The authors of this first essay consider the nature of the elites indifferent societies, the meaning of the differences between these elites,the kinds of elite transformations taking place, and so on. They note that thirteencountries were examined in the book, and all thirteen had long histories ofelite disunity and unstable regimes. [6]L. The majority of the essays are directed towardcountries in Latin America, but there are several essays directed toward astudy of these issues with reference to South European countries likePortugal and Italy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.Farah, Tawfic. Boulle, Constitutional Reform and the Apartheid State (NewYork: St. J. New York: St. [8]Ibid., 13-15.----------------------- 1 Martin's Press, 1984.Burton, Michael, Richard Gunther, and John Higley. This definitionrefers to an "ideal type," and all of the criteria must be approximatedclosely if a regime is to be called democratic. Martin's Press, 1984), 45. We contend that in independent states with long records of political instability and authoritarian rule, distinctive elite transformations, carried out by the elites themselves, constitute the main and possibly the only route to democratic consolidation. 3) Consociational democracy applies to those democracies withsubcultural cleavages and with tendencies toward immobilism and instabilitywhich are deliberately turned into more stable systems by the leaders ofmajor subcultures. Elites and Democratic Consolidation in Latin America and Southern Europe. BibliographyBoulle, L.J. "Introduction: elite transformations and democratic regimes." In Higley and Gunther, Elites and Democratic Consolidation in Latin America and Southern Europe. The editors conclude with an overview that reiterates the thesisand discusses the evidence offered to support it. The editors offer a justification for producing another volume ondemocratization in the fact that their book is distinct from the existingliterature on the subject in two ways: 1) each of the country studiesfocuses on factors contributing to the successful consolidation ofdemocratic regimes and not on the transition to democracy as such; and 2)this volume has a single theoretical framework: Each of the case studies applies a common set of concepts dealing with first, the ability of elites to reach agreements that contribute to the consolidation of new democratic regimes and, second, with circumstances that facilitate such agreements.[1]The editors note that there is broad agreement about the elite preconditionfor consolidated democracy, but there is no agreement about how it iscreated or how it is sustained. [7]Tawfic Farah, Aspects of Modernization and Consociationalism:Lebanon as an Exploratory Test Case (Lincoln, Nebraska: Middle EastResearch Group, 1975), 13. The articles taken as a whole are comprehensive,covering the countries in latin America to which the thesis applies, anddoing so in a way that elucidates the specific role of democraticconsolidation. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.