Internal forces promoting democratization in developing countries essay

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August Democratization is one of the most important concepts and trends in modern political science, one whose significance is just beginning to be understood by conflict-resolution practitioners.

Internal Forces Promoting Democratization in Developing Countries Essay Example for Free

On one level, it is a relatively simple idea, since democratization is simply the establishment of a democratic political regime.

However, in practice, democratization has been anything but easy to understand, let alone achieve. Democracy, as we know it today, is a relatively recent phenomenon.

While some of the Greek city states and medieval Poland had regimes that had democratic aspects, modern democracy only dates from the late 18th century. To be considered democratic, a country must choose its leaders through fair and competitive elections, ensure basic civil liberties, and respect the rule of law.

Some observers also claim that a democracy has to have a capitalist economy and a strong civil-society and civic culture, although not all political scientists would include these two criteria.

Democratization is the process whereby a country adopts such a regime. There is less agreement among political scientists about how that process occurs, including the criteria to use in determining if democratization has, in fact, taken place.

Many countries have adopted democratic regimes only to see them collapse in a military coup or other revolt that yields an authoritarian government instead. Typically, we do not think that democracy has truly taken root until at least three national elections have been held.

Another criterion raised by many experts is the peaceful transfer of power from one political party or coalition to the former opposition. Such a transition is critical because it indicates that the major political forces in a country are prepared to settle their disputes without violence and to accept that they will all spend periods of time out of office.

Less clear is how democratization occurs. It took an extended period of time to develop in the industrialized countries of Western Europe and North America.

In the United States and Great Britain, it took well over a century before all the institutions and practices mentioned above were firmly in place. France, Germany, and Italy saw their democratic regimes collapse and be replaced by fascist ones.

It is undoubtedly true that democratization can take place faster today. However, it certainly is not something that can be instituted overnight.

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Democratization takes time because it requires the development of new institutions and widespread trust in them, which almost never happens quickly. Why is Democratization Important? As with the definition of the term, the importance of democratization is easy to see at first glance but is much more complicated in practice.

Democratization is important because of one of the most widely but not universally accepted trends in international relations, known as the democratic peace. Put simply, democracies do not have wars with other democracies.

There were a handful of ambiguous cases in the 19th century in which democratizing countries fought other emerging democracies.

But there have been no cases of an established democracy going to battle with another one since Obviously, that does not mean that democracies cannot go to war with each other.

But there is something about democracy and the relationship between democracies that allows them to settle their disputes peacefully. There is no agreement about why the democratic peace exists. Some political scientists stress the cultural norms of trust and tolerance which underlie democracy.

Others emphasize the institutions democracies develop for nonviolent conflict resolution, including elections and legislatures.

Still others highlight the cultural and economic relations that have increasingly tied the wealthy democracies to each other. Whatever the exact mix of causes, there is little debate that the wealthy democracies have become what Max Singer and Aaron Wildavsky have called a "zone of peace" in which war has become all but unimaginable.

The institutions and value systems that make democracy possible are based on the development of the trusttoleranceand capacity for cooperation that make stable peace and reconciliation possible outcomes of a conflict-resolution process.

Unfortunately, the very same reasons that make democratization important make it difficult to achieve. The ethnic and other tensions that give rise to intractable conflict create so much mistrust and intolerance that cooperation is very difficult to achieve.

Indeed, there are very few countries that have been able to move from intractable conflict to democracy quickly or easily. One exception is South Africa, where the black and white political elites summoned up unprecedented political will and commitment to the multiracial democracy that came into effect in Sonderweg (German: [ˈzɔndɐˌveːk], "special path") identifies the theory in German historiography that considers the German-speaking lands or the country Germany itself to have followed a course from aristocracy to democracy unlike any other in Europe..

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The modern school of thought by that name arose early during World War II as a consequence of the rise of Nazi Germany. Empirically, this is the first large-scale, comparative study analyzing the democratization impact of various types of World Bank and IMF programs in developing countries.

It is based on a panel of 80 developing countries from to Democratization (or democratisation) is the transition to a more democratic political timberdesignmag.com also refers to substantive political changes moving in a democratic direction.

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It may be the transition from an authoritarian regime to a full democracy, a transition from an authoritarian political system to a semi-democracy or transition from a semi-authoritarian political system to a democratic. An exploration of the nature and history of capitalism. Global capitalism, colonies and Third-World economic realities.

31 CHAPTER 2 Causes of Poverty and a Framework for Action A decade ago World Development Report pre- sented a two-part strategy for poverty reduction: Countries that have been most successful in attacking.

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