Pub Date : 2023-08-06DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2023.2242790
J. Wiessmann
identity politics in Africa will find this volume particularly insightful. The volume’s chapters speak to and complement recent publications that have focused on themes these individual chapters raise that emphasize the importance of context in studying African politics. The volume however could have been strengthened by applying its analytical frame on the international relations of Africa and coups and unconstitutional changes of government in Africa.
{"title":"The Two Logics of Autocratic Rule","authors":"J. Wiessmann","doi":"10.1080/13510347.2023.2242790","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2023.2242790","url":null,"abstract":"identity politics in Africa will find this volume particularly insightful. The volume’s chapters speak to and complement recent publications that have focused on themes these individual chapters raise that emphasize the importance of context in studying African politics. The volume however could have been strengthened by applying its analytical frame on the international relations of Africa and coups and unconstitutional changes of government in Africa.","PeriodicalId":47953,"journal":{"name":"Democratization","volume":"30 1","pages":"1431 - 1433"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2023-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49117082","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-31DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2023.2238187
Dongshu Liu
ABSTRACT Cooptation is widely applied to study authoritarian legislatures, but it is often used to identify and placate the opposition groups. For one-party authoritarian regimes in which the hardcore opposition groups are not represented in the legislature, do autocrats still display dynamics of cooptation when responding to the delegates? Based on a unique dataset of government responses to delegate proposals in China, this article finds that the Chinese regime indeed responds to People’s Congress delegates based on the need for cooptation. Delegates who are members of the ruling Communist Party of China (CCP), who are more tightly controlled through the party institution, receive less favourable state responses than non-CCP delegates. However, the disadvantages of CCP delegates disappear when the risk of internal defection increases. The findings further show that even in the absence of strong opposition parties, authoritarian regimes still adopt cooptation strategies in legislatures.
{"title":"Cooptation without opposition: government response in the authoritarian legislature in China","authors":"Dongshu Liu","doi":"10.1080/13510347.2023.2238187","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2023.2238187","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Cooptation is widely applied to study authoritarian legislatures, but it is often used to identify and placate the opposition groups. For one-party authoritarian regimes in which the hardcore opposition groups are not represented in the legislature, do autocrats still display dynamics of cooptation when responding to the delegates? Based on a unique dataset of government responses to delegate proposals in China, this article finds that the Chinese regime indeed responds to People’s Congress delegates based on the need for cooptation. Delegates who are members of the ruling Communist Party of China (CCP), who are more tightly controlled through the party institution, receive less favourable state responses than non-CCP delegates. However, the disadvantages of CCP delegates disappear when the risk of internal defection increases. The findings further show that even in the absence of strong opposition parties, authoritarian regimes still adopt cooptation strategies in legislatures.","PeriodicalId":47953,"journal":{"name":"Democratization","volume":"30 1","pages":"1400 - 1422"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2023-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45334812","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-13DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2023.2232305
Victor Agboga
ABSTRACT Are there electoral consequences for elected politicians who switch from one party to another? Existing research on this question discovered that switchers often perform worse in elections than non-switchers because voters are suspicious of their intentions, especially in older democracies. Nonetheless, few robust studies have been conducted on this in Africa amidst concerns of weak party institutionalization and voters’ passivism, despite the prevalence of switching on the continent and copious existing research on the issue on other continents. I conducted a nationwide representative survey gauging voters’ response to party switching and analysed an original dataset on party switching among African MPs, using Nigeria with over 200 cases of party defection within eight years as a case study. I discovered party switchers in Nigeria, Africa's biggest democracy, performed worse in elections compared to non-switchers, with significant implications for our understanding of voting behaviour in Africa.
{"title":"How do voters respond to party switching in Africa?","authors":"Victor Agboga","doi":"10.1080/13510347.2023.2232305","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2023.2232305","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Are there electoral consequences for elected politicians who switch from one party to another? Existing research on this question discovered that switchers often perform worse in elections than non-switchers because voters are suspicious of their intentions, especially in older democracies. Nonetheless, few robust studies have been conducted on this in Africa amidst concerns of weak party institutionalization and voters’ passivism, despite the prevalence of switching on the continent and copious existing research on the issue on other continents. I conducted a nationwide representative survey gauging voters’ response to party switching and analysed an original dataset on party switching among African MPs, using Nigeria with over 200 cases of party defection within eight years as a case study. I discovered party switchers in Nigeria, Africa's biggest democracy, performed worse in elections compared to non-switchers, with significant implications for our understanding of voting behaviour in Africa.","PeriodicalId":47953,"journal":{"name":"Democratization","volume":"30 1","pages":"1335 - 1356"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2023-07-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42802109","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-11DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2023.2228710
C. Schulz-Herzenberg, R. Mattes
ABSTRACT Why do dominant parties continue to win elections despite significant governance failures? Scholars of one party democracies tend to locate explanations at the macro-level: manipulation of rules, control over state media, or selective distribution of benefits to supporters. Other scholars emphasize ethnic or religious identities which trump consideration of policy and performance. We employ a multinomial regression model of voter decisions in South Africa’s 2019 general election to explore how the ruling African National Congress managed to secure 58% of the vote amidst a massive corruption scandal and waning public services. We find that dissatisfied government supporters do not ignore poor performance, but must perceive a legitimate alternative amongst the opposition before they switch their vote. Otherwise, they exit the electorate. This allows the governing party to win significant proportions of a diminishing electorate. Thus, decisions about whether to vote are not just a result of resources, mobilization or efficacy, but are also rooted in perceptions of governing and opposition parties. Voter turnout and vote choice are intimately linked, rather than separate causal processes. Moreover, continued one-party dominance may be as much a function of opposition party failure as it is of government control over rules, rents or resources.
{"title":"It takes two to toyi-toyi: one party dominance and opposition party failure in South Africa’s 2019 national election","authors":"C. Schulz-Herzenberg, R. Mattes","doi":"10.1080/13510347.2023.2228710","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2023.2228710","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Why do dominant parties continue to win elections despite significant governance failures? Scholars of one party democracies tend to locate explanations at the macro-level: manipulation of rules, control over state media, or selective distribution of benefits to supporters. Other scholars emphasize ethnic or religious identities which trump consideration of policy and performance. We employ a multinomial regression model of voter decisions in South Africa’s 2019 general election to explore how the ruling African National Congress managed to secure 58% of the vote amidst a massive corruption scandal and waning public services. We find that dissatisfied government supporters do not ignore poor performance, but must perceive a legitimate alternative amongst the opposition before they switch their vote. Otherwise, they exit the electorate. This allows the governing party to win significant proportions of a diminishing electorate. Thus, decisions about whether to vote are not just a result of resources, mobilization or efficacy, but are also rooted in perceptions of governing and opposition parties. Voter turnout and vote choice are intimately linked, rather than separate causal processes. Moreover, continued one-party dominance may be as much a function of opposition party failure as it is of government control over rules, rents or resources.","PeriodicalId":47953,"journal":{"name":"Democratization","volume":"30 1","pages":"1313 - 1334"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2023-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41851704","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-10DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2023.2223142
Elvin Ong, Syazwi Bin Rahmad
{"title":"Civil society collective action under authoritarianism: divergent collaborative equilibriums for political reform in Malaysia and Singapore","authors":"Elvin Ong, Syazwi Bin Rahmad","doi":"10.1080/13510347.2023.2223142","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2023.2223142","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47953,"journal":{"name":"Democratization","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2023-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49243264","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-06DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2023.2231853
Andrew O’Donohue
Specifically, the demise of the U.S. liberal unipolarity and the shift to a multipolar international system (touched upon briefly by the author on pp. 358 & 429-430) might be one of the main determining factors of the future of revolutionary contention in the world. All in all, The Revolutionary City is an impressive achievement both in terms of its scope and in terms of the great ideas and arguments it contains. It is definitely the most comprehensive global study of revolutions to date. It will be of interest primarily to comparativist social scientists and policymakers alike.
{"title":"The Social Constitution: Embedding Social Rights Through Legal Mobilization","authors":"Andrew O’Donohue","doi":"10.1080/13510347.2023.2231853","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2023.2231853","url":null,"abstract":"Specifically, the demise of the U.S. liberal unipolarity and the shift to a multipolar international system (touched upon briefly by the author on pp. 358 & 429-430) might be one of the main determining factors of the future of revolutionary contention in the world. All in all, The Revolutionary City is an impressive achievement both in terms of its scope and in terms of the great ideas and arguments it contains. It is definitely the most comprehensive global study of revolutions to date. It will be of interest primarily to comparativist social scientists and policymakers alike.","PeriodicalId":47953,"journal":{"name":"Democratization","volume":"30 1","pages":"1427 - 1429"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2023-07-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43913110","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-06DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2023.2231873
Mwita Chacha
tion to competing explanations would have been appreciated (at least by this reviewer). These points notwithstanding, there is little doubt that Taylor’s book will be the goto resource for political scientists, legal scholars, and practitioners seeking to understand how the tutela transformed Colombian society and how social constitutionalism became ingrained in everyday life. While a rich literature has documented the deficiencies marring the rule of law in Latin America, Taylor makes a contribution by illuminating a positive case of how rights become embedded in practice. Given that the study of political regimes often exhibits a selection bias toward negative cases, Taylor’s contribution is rare and refreshing. For the many scholars and citizens who admire the Colombian model—or seek to improve upon it—this book will be required reading.
{"title":"Elites and the Politics of Accountability in Africa","authors":"Mwita Chacha","doi":"10.1080/13510347.2023.2231873","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2023.2231873","url":null,"abstract":"tion to competing explanations would have been appreciated (at least by this reviewer). These points notwithstanding, there is little doubt that Taylor’s book will be the goto resource for political scientists, legal scholars, and practitioners seeking to understand how the tutela transformed Colombian society and how social constitutionalism became ingrained in everyday life. While a rich literature has documented the deficiencies marring the rule of law in Latin America, Taylor makes a contribution by illuminating a positive case of how rights become embedded in practice. Given that the study of political regimes often exhibits a selection bias toward negative cases, Taylor’s contribution is rare and refreshing. For the many scholars and citizens who admire the Colombian model—or seek to improve upon it—this book will be required reading.","PeriodicalId":47953,"journal":{"name":"Democratization","volume":"30 1","pages":"1429 - 1431"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2023-07-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48975298","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-06DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2023.2207213
Lars Pelke
ABSTRACT Democracy is under threat across the globe and a third wave of autocratization manifests in democratic regression and authoritarian hardening. However, although universities have been important pro-democracy hotbeds, the nexus between academic freedom and autocratization has generated little scholarly attention. This article presents the first systematic investigation of the influence of academic freedom on the onset of autocratization. In particular, it reveals how academic freedom protects regimes from an onset of autocratization and argues that more academic freedom reduces the risk of autocratization by imprinting a pro-democracy bias on students and researchers. This article’s research design combines two studies. Study I tests whether graduates that were socialized under more academic freedom develop more democratic support, which I analyse using data from the World Values Surveys and linear fixed effects models. Study II tests whether more academic freedom reduces the onset probability of autocratization using V-Dem data and binomial-response GLMs. This article finds evidence that while high levels of academic freedom reduce the probability of an onset of autocratization, low levels also reduce the probability of an onset. Overall, the article highlights the crucial role of academic freedom for democracy, especially in times of severe threats to democracy.
{"title":"Academic freedom and the onset of autocratization","authors":"Lars Pelke","doi":"10.1080/13510347.2023.2207213","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2023.2207213","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Democracy is under threat across the globe and a third wave of autocratization manifests in democratic regression and authoritarian hardening. However, although universities have been important pro-democracy hotbeds, the nexus between academic freedom and autocratization has generated little scholarly attention. This article presents the first systematic investigation of the influence of academic freedom on the onset of autocratization. In particular, it reveals how academic freedom protects regimes from an onset of autocratization and argues that more academic freedom reduces the risk of autocratization by imprinting a pro-democracy bias on students and researchers. This article’s research design combines two studies. Study I tests whether graduates that were socialized under more academic freedom develop more democratic support, which I analyse using data from the World Values Surveys and linear fixed effects models. Study II tests whether more academic freedom reduces the onset probability of autocratization using V-Dem data and binomial-response GLMs. This article finds evidence that while high levels of academic freedom reduce the probability of an onset of autocratization, low levels also reduce the probability of an onset. Overall, the article highlights the crucial role of academic freedom for democracy, especially in times of severe threats to democracy.","PeriodicalId":47953,"journal":{"name":"Democratization","volume":"30 1","pages":"1015 - 1039"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2023-07-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48189729","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-03DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2023.2227572
Vera W. H. Yuen
ABSTRACT Under COVID-19 emergency decrees, countries imposed freedom-restricting measures that health experts endorsed to contain the disease. There has been debates about whether the pandemic has led to the backsliding of democratic standards and the promotion of illiberal and authoritarian practices. This study conducted a survey in Hong Kong, a non-democracy. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government postponed an election widely expected to be won by the opposition. This study explores whether health experts’ opinions could affect public support for postponement of a regular election and government trustworthiness. It finds that neither health experts’ affirmation nor negation increased support for the postponement, but rejecting the government mandate reduced government trustworthiness while affirming it did not. The negative opinions thus had asymmetric information value against affirmative opinions in a known-censored environment. This channel operates through democrats in Hong Kong, who are critical citizens of the regime. The strategy of silencing dissent would be cost-effective for preserving political trust while engaging experts to support the mandates appeared unhelpful. This study contributes to understanding the use of experts in influencing political trust within an authoritarian setting.
{"title":"The use of experts in building political trust: dissenting opinions and critical citizens in times of crisis","authors":"Vera W. H. Yuen","doi":"10.1080/13510347.2023.2227572","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2023.2227572","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Under COVID-19 emergency decrees, countries imposed freedom-restricting measures that health experts endorsed to contain the disease. There has been debates about whether the pandemic has led to the backsliding of democratic standards and the promotion of illiberal and authoritarian practices. This study conducted a survey in Hong Kong, a non-democracy. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government postponed an election widely expected to be won by the opposition. This study explores whether health experts’ opinions could affect public support for postponement of a regular election and government trustworthiness. It finds that neither health experts’ affirmation nor negation increased support for the postponement, but rejecting the government mandate reduced government trustworthiness while affirming it did not. The negative opinions thus had asymmetric information value against affirmative opinions in a known-censored environment. This channel operates through democrats in Hong Kong, who are critical citizens of the regime. The strategy of silencing dissent would be cost-effective for preserving political trust while engaging experts to support the mandates appeared unhelpful. This study contributes to understanding the use of experts in influencing political trust within an authoritarian setting.","PeriodicalId":47953,"journal":{"name":"Democratization","volume":"30 1","pages":"1291 - 1312"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43988717","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-28DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2023.2227843
Katerina Hatzikidi
{"title":"Democracy erodes from the top: Leaders, citizens, and the challenge of populism in Europe","authors":"Katerina Hatzikidi","doi":"10.1080/13510347.2023.2227843","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2023.2227843","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47953,"journal":{"name":"Democratization","volume":"30 1","pages":"1188 - 1190"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2023-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45814265","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：