Throughout the 20th century, democracy has gained its status as the predominant and most legitimate form of national governance. Through complex and diverse processes of democratization, not all successful, increasingly more states embedded democratic characteristics and procedures into their governance systems. Consequently, democracy and democratization swiftly became the subject-matter of extensive academic literature, widely referred to as \u201cDemocratic Transition Theory\u201d (hereafter: DTT), which aims to scrutinize various aspects of emerging democratic regimes and democratic transitions.<\/p>\n
This essay will focus on the question \u201cWhat are the weaknesses of democratic transition theory\u201d. It will assess, while using the case-study of democratization processes in the former-Yugoslavia states, different shortcomings of existing DTT, which arguably undermine its theoretical validity and call into question the extent to which it is useful in explaining contemporary democratic transitions First, at the theoretical level, DTT\u2019s incoherent and diverse use of concepts, variables and methods, which weakens its internal validity. Second, at the empirical level, DTT is inapplicable to contemporary variants of democratic transitions \u2013 mainly due to the impact of globalization processes on notions of statehood and citizenship in post-conflict situations, which weakens its external validity. Third, at the practical level, DTT blurs boundaries between academic accounts and policy prescriptions as well as between descriptive and normative perspectives, which calls into question its utility as a guiding principle for democratization policy. Based on these three critiques, I will argue that we should differentiate between notions of DTT as an academic theory and as a political paradigm. As an academic theory, we should perceive it as an \u201copen project\u201d and thus further develop it in order to suggest plausible explanations of contemporary transitions. As a political paradigm, we should acknowledge the theoretical limitations in using it to underwrite democratization policy and therefore revisit its prescriptive and normative strands.<\/p>\n
(A)Democratic-Transition-Theory: A-Historical-Background<\/p>\n
DTT is a field of study that focuses on exploring the political phenomenon of regime transitions. In this sense, DTT is a fairly coherent research program, which encompasses various studies which aim to scrutinize the process by which a state attempts to embed democratic features in its formal and informal patterns of governance. DTT\u2019s contemporary incarnation evolved in light of the democratic transitions in Latin America and South Europe starting in the mid 1970s. These processes, which Huntington-(1991) dubbed \u201cthe third wave of democratization\u201d, begat a prominent line of DTT studies (e.g. Huntington, 1991; O\u2019Donnell and Schmitter,1996), suggesting various explanatory frameworks for these transitions.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, studies on democracy as a form of governance emerged before that. Seminal works of American scholars in the 1960s articulated the first configuration of DTT, which aimed to scrutinize the structural settings that arguably explained democratic patterns, these usually focused either on economic factors, like modernization and economic development or on cultural factors, like political culture. These were nevertheless more of an attempt to empirically identify the structural conditions that shape specific modes of political institutions and focused less on the studying the process of democratic transition itself. The political processes of \u201cthe-Third-Wave\u201d, have generated a new approach to DTT, which diverted the focus from strictly structural explanations to agent-oriented ones. This new approach emphasizes the role of political elites as agents that realize and \u201cexecute\u201d democratic transitions (for an overview on DTT, see Bunce,2000: 705-715)<\/p>\n
The study of democratization expanded in light of democracy\u2019s worldwide expansion. Multiple regional and cross-regional studies were performed in various attempts to deduce theoretical generalizations regarding democratization. Altogether, these studies explored a common type of transition, characterized as the process through which a breakthrough of an authoritarian regime in a certain state results in \u201ctransition toward democracy\u201d (Carothers, 2002:). In this sense, DTT studies differed in the various causal explanations of the factors that facilitate the political phenomenon of regimes transitions. By focusing on the processes\u2019 features rather than on its diverse origins or potential outcomes, these studies suggested a certain and limited prism on democratic transitions. This prism, based on retrospective empirical evaluations of concrete and deliberated democratization processes in Latin America and South Europe, painted a picture of relatively sequenced and pre-determent patterns of democratic reforms within nondemocratic states.<\/p>\n
The criteria for evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of theories are typically based on assessing their internal and external validity. Internal validity refers to the strength of the causal links a theory suggests in terms of conceptualizing, measuring and qualifying its variables-and the relations between them. External validity refers to the extent to which theories can be generalized and applied to situations other than those examined. In the next section, I will evaluate-both the internal and external validity of DTT. First, internally in terms of concepts and methodology, and then externally in terms of its applicability to explaining more recent regime transitions- specifically, the fragmentation of Yugoslavia from 1990-1999.<\/p>\n
(B)DTT-Weaknesses: Internal-Validity<\/p>\n
DTT\u2019s main weakness in terms of internal validity is the lack of sufficient coherence in its concepts, variables and the links it suggests between them (Munck,1994). DTT as a research program encompasses various studies aiming to explain democratic transitions; however, these studies define \u201cdemocratic\u201d and\/or \u201ctransitions\u201d in different ways. This in turn creates a situation in which theories that allegedly claim to offer alternative explanations to the same phenomenon, actually explain different phenomena.<\/p>\n
For example, the book of O\u2019Donnell and Schmitter (1986), a seminal DTT work, posits in its first paragraph that it \u201cdeals with transitions from certain authoritarian regime toward an uncertain \u2018something else’\u201d (O\u2019Donnell and Schmitter, 1986:3). Huntington\u2019s book, probably the work that is most identified with the DTT, declares in its preface that it is about \u201cthe transition of some thirty countries from nondemocratic to democratic political system (Huntington: 1991, 3). Linz and Stephen (1996), present a third approach, which attempts to revisit the traditional DTT and explore \u201chow the character of different nondemocratic regimes affects, or does not affect, the paths that can be taken to complete a transition to a democratic regime\u201d (Linz and Stephen, 1996: 3). These three examples reflect three different conceptualization of democratization: O\u2019Donnell and Schmitter focus on the origins of a political transition, Huntington examines the factors that shape the process of democratization, and Linz and Stephan illuminate the final phase of the process, the consolidation. These different explanatory frameworks, although complementary to a certain extent, are incomparable in terms of evaluating the strength of their arguments and their plausibility.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, DTT studies not only conceptualize democratic transition differently, but-also conceptualize \u201cdemocracy\u201d differently. This illuminates two major disagreements that hinder the internal validity of DTT. At the conceptual level, DTT theorists disagree over which democratic features should be used to signify the degree of both existence and success of democratic transitions. At the methodological level, they-disagree on how these features can and should be measured. For example, while Huntington prefers to stick to the minimal definition of democracy as a political system in which \u201cdecision-makers are selected through fair, honest and periodic elections\u201d (Huntington,1991:7), Linz and Stephan choose a wider definition comprising behavioural, attitudinal and constitutional elements (Linz and Stephan,1996:6).<\/p>\n
The challenge of defining and operationalizing democracy indicators corresponds with the extensive academic literature of democratic theory. The latter, a close relative of democratic transition theory, focuses on highly contested questions of defining, measuring and qualifying democracy both procedurally as a form of government and conceptually as a conduit of specific values and norms (e.g. Beetham, 1994). The challenge for DTT in this sense is obvious. If there is no consensus on how to define democracy, how to qualify it and how it can be measured, how could DTT attempt to portray the trajectories of transition to democracy, let alone explain the factors that shape them. For example, the common explanation of elite-driven transition, which emphasizes the essential role of political elites in the transition process, fails to explain the relations between \u201cdemocracy\u201d and political elites, namely to explicate why, and under what conditions, political elites will be motivated to perpetuate political transition (Bunce,2000).<\/p>\n
These are just several examples of the theory\u2019s internal shortcomings. Alongside others, these examples raise questions regarding the ability of DTT\u2019s causal explanations to depict a complete picture of the specific transitions they aim to explain (Munck, 1994). This by itself is a sufficient reason to question the transferability of the theory and the ability of applying it on other transitions (Pridham, 2000:1-3). The next section will focus on democratic transitions in the Balkans as a case-study to illustrate the limitations of using classic premises of DTT as plausible theoretical lenses for explaining political transitions in contemporary post-conflict situations.<\/p>\n
(C)DTT-Weaknesses:-External-Validity<\/p>\n
Yugoslavia\u2019s disintegration and the Balkan wars (1990-1999) that followed led to the creation of seven new independent states (including Kosovo). All were required to face the complex mission of reconstructing (actually constructing) basic political and economic state-infrastructures. This mission is composed, according to Offe (quoted in Kostovicova and Bojicic-Dzelilovic,2006: 226) , of triple transition: (1) At the societal level, nation-state building (which can be separated into two different building processes \u2013 state-institutions and the nation); (2) at the economic level, economic liberalization and (3) at the political level, democratization (see also Blunden, 2004:22-23 and Hippler, 2008). These are not separated transitions. In practice, they not only overlap and intertwine, but they also affect each other and are shaped by similar factors. In this respect, democratic transitions in the Balkans cannot be examined separately from the context of concurrent transitions on one hand and of the historical circumstances and legacies that generated those, on the other (Pridham, 2000:9-15). Herein lays DTT\u2019s main deficiency: it is almost blind to the importance of different contexts, at both the domestic and international realms which could potentially affect democratic transitions. .<\/p>\n
One of the main indicators of democratization processes in the Balkans is popular elections, which were held in all of the emerging Balkan states ever sense the-aftermath of the Balkans-wars. Even if we will accept the disputed assertion that elections endow a polity with the label \u201cdemocratic,\u201d the statehood of these polities still remains questionable (Edmunds, 2007; Krastev, 2002). The puzzling phenomenon of democracy preceding statehood, simply does not meet the basic premises of DTT, hence highlights the latter inapplicability to post-conflict political transitions.<\/p>\n
One of DTT\u2019s core assumptions is that the polity in transition is not only a state, but also a consolidated one. It assumes that the transition is occurring within the framework of an existing infrastructure of political institutions and is reconstructed through the transition process (Carothers, 2002). The case of the Balkan states imposes a new challenge to this. When former Yugoslav states declared independence, they not only lacked effective and legitimate governments, but were also locked in a state of ethnic conflict. Both conditions have fundamental effects on subsequent democratization processes. Democratization in the Balkans was essentially entwined with processes of state-building and nation-building, and thus was framed more as means to empower forces who wanted to shape the future nation-state and less as an independent aim. This argument could be applied to both nationalist forces operating within quasi-states and to the participating international and transnational actors (Blunden, 2004; Pridham, 2000).<\/p>\n
The fragmentation of Yugoslavia and subsequent wars created a great political and social vacuum in its former republics. Opposed to the basic assumptions of DTT, the political transitions in this region were not a consequence of a regime\u2019s breakthrough but rather of a state. This did not lead to processes of political reconstruction, but rather a fundamental need to construct social, economic and political institutions. The post-conflict vacuum, characterized by a great sense of social insecurity, facilitated a competition between various forces over power and authority within a given territory (Hippler, 2008). This competition was embodied in the Balkan conflicts and in the reconstruction processes that followed them. Subsequently, post-war processes of state-building in the Balkans became associated with nation-building processes evolving around ethnic-fragmentation.<\/p>\n
Given the legacies of the failure of the prior state-authority to maintain its statehood and conflicts that generated from that, the post-conflict situation in the Balkan illuminated the attractiveness of state authority alternatives in the form of nationalism and identity politics (Kostovicova and Bojicic-Dzelilovic,2006:229-230; 2009; Smith,1996: 2-3). Consequently, crucial power shifts within the realm of the state allocated more power to exclusive ethno-nationalist groups than to inclusive ones (Zakaria,2003:15). For example, In Bosnia-Herzegovina(BiH), since 1996 the parliament has been dominated by the wartime nationalist parties, reflecting popular support for ethnic divides and separatism (Waters,2004). This demonstrates the inability of the new state systems to create what Smith (1996) calls a balance between the civic and ethnic dimensions of nationalism (Smith,1996:97-102). Constant disagreements over the definition of the \u201cpeople\u201d and the transformation from a Westphalian definition, which is based on bordered territory, to an ethnicity-based definition of people, undermined the ability of any state representative to establish equilibrium and therefore to consolidate effective and legitimate democratic states.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, nationalist groups use democratic practices to recreate the nation and national identity rather than create a functioning state (Smith, 1996:80-82). For example, in 2004-5 Serbian and Montenegrin nationalist group used the political institutions in Serbia and Montenegro (unified state back then) as part of their as part of their struggle for independence and separation (Edmund, 2007). Under the circumstances of weak and fragile states, these ethnic fragmentations just could not be accommodated under any constellation of democratically-elected government (Edmunds, 2007; Krastev,2002:49; Waters,2004; Zakaria, 2003:113-155). As a result, the emerging Balkan states emphasized their ethnic components and therefore provoked processes of hyper-nationalism, ethnic-centralization and exclusion (Smith,1996:105-106), all of which are essentially counterproductive to state-building processes.<\/p>\n
The lack of a civic component, which essentially defines the relationship between the state and its citizens, imposes more challenges for DTT, which presupposes the existence of statehood and in particular, clear definitions of citizens and citizenship. In this respect, citizenship is acknowledged as prerequisite to democracy, not to mention one of its constitutive elements. After all, if democracy is literally \u201cthe rule of the people\u201d, without agreement on who are \u201cthe people\u201d there cannot be a democracy. Thus, if one embraces Grugel\u2019s concept of democratization as \u201cthe establishment of democratic practices of citizenship\u201d (Grugel,2003:250), the absence of a clear civic component in the Balkan states questions the mere existence of democratic transitions within them and emphasize their embedded weakness (Kostovicova and Bojicic-Dzelilovic,2009). In terms of DTT, this emphasizes the need to expand its explanatory frameworks to cases in which there is not only a regime transition but also a transition (or construction) of a state, which entails differentiating between the constitutive elements of democracy \u2013 citizenship and statehood \u2013 and its procedural practices, like elections.<\/p>\n
Another neglected dimension of DTT, which arguably has crucial impact on contemporary post-conflict transitions, is the international dimension (Schmitz,2004). International forces, and external forces in general have always had some impact on domestic democratization transitions as demonstrated by US efforts in the Alliance for Progress (1961) and various foreign aid schemes for democratization states in Latin America. Nevertheless, although prominent DTT scholars acknowledged the role of the US in third wave democratization processes (Huntington,1991:91-100), and recognized ,its part in the history of democratization, the role of external forces or superpowers was not incorporated into DTT\u2019s explanatory frameworks thus was absent from democratization theory (Schmitz,2004). More than that, the DTT\u2019s reliance on firm division between the external and domestic realms overlooks the involvement of external, international, global and transnational elements in these transitions and thus ignores their role in shaping the course of contemporary post-conflict transition.<\/p>\n
Here again the political transitions in the Balkans reveal the inapplicability of the DTT to contemporary conflicts because of its tendency to decontextualize the political phenomenon it aims to explore. The DTT treats democracy and democratization as unitary concepts that have firm meanings regardless of time and space constraints, and thus assumes they can be defined and measured via objective and positivist lenses. Nevertheless, since democracy as a set of political procedures is the manifestation of set of ideas and concepts, its meaning is dynamic and interpretative, that is constructed and socialized by social institutions and actors under specific social and historical circumstances.<\/p>\n
An important shift in the ideas and meanings of democracy and democratization has occurred in the past few decades (Whitehead,2002:7-9). The end of the Cold-War marked for many the triumph of democracy as a desirable idea. This, accompanied by recently emergent ideas of human security, generated a paradigm shift in the academic and political agendas toward the need to embody and realize notions of human, liberal and political rights. President Clinton articulated this trend in its first inaugural speech (1992):<\/p>\n
\u201c[O]ur greatest strength is the power of our ideas, which are still new in many lands. Across the world, we see them embraced, and we rejoice. Our hopes, our hearts, our hands, are with those on every continent who are building democracy and freedom. Their cause is America\u2019s cause.\u201d\u00a0[1<\/a>]<\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n In light of these notions, NATO, under U.S. leadership, framed its involvement in the Balkan wars at both diplomatic level (e.g. the Dayton Agreement, 1996) and military one (e.g. NATO\u2019s Operation Joint Guardian in Kosovo,1999). Another example for the ideational framework of the external forces in the Balkans is the involvement of NATO the UN, the EU, and GCS bodies in managing reconstruction and state-building tasks in the region. The official objectives of these tasks illustrate their aim to develop in these states the civic components of statehood and democracy.<\/p>\n For example, the mission of NATO-led stabilization force in BiH articulates that its legal and political framework was determined in light of Dayton Agreement\u2019s goals (1996):<\/p>\n \u201cTo provide a safe and secure environment; To-establish a-unified, democratic Bosnia-and Herzegovina.; To rebuild-the-economy.; and To allow the return of displaced persons and refugees to their prewar-homes.\u201d\u00a0[2<\/a>]<\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n The mandate of the UN-Mission in BiH (1995) emphasizes the role of law enforcement, whose main tasks include:<\/p>\n \u201cMonitoring, observing and inspecting law enforcement activities and facilities; advising law enforcement personnel and forces; assessing threats to public order and advising on the capability of law-enforcement agencies to deal with such threats\u201d\u00a0[3<\/a>]<\/span>\u00a0.<\/p>\n It also makes its assistance to specific parties in BiH conditional and declares that it will:<\/p>\n \u201cConsider-requests from the parties-or law-enforcement agencies in-Bosnia and Herzegovina for-assistance, with priority being given to ensuring the existence of conditions for free and fair elections.\u201d<\/p>\n The objectives of the UN peacekeeping force in Kosovo (KFOR, 1999) are also similar:<\/p>\n