Topic for Today: Transitology and Pacts

1. Topic for Today:Transitology and Pacts • Types of transition (Huntington). • Balance of power in negotiations. • Pact-Making.

2. Types of Transition By Sources of Democratization (Source: Huntington, p. 114)

3. Conditions for Transformation • Emergence of reformers within regime. • Several possible reasons for emergence.

4. Conditions for Transformation • Reformers must acquire power within regime. • Old leader dies. • E.g. Spain. • New reformers rise through ranks of party. • E.g. Mexico. • Reformers oust hardliners. • E.g. Nigeria.

5. Conditions for Transformation • Failure of liberalization alone – demands for democracy. • E.g. USSR.

6. Conditions for Transformation • Subdue the hardliners. • Centralize decisionmaking so only reformers influence decisions. • Purge areas of government, bureaucracy, military where hardliners dominate. • In purging hardliners, make argument about “returning to legitimacy.”

7. Conditions for Transformation • Coopt the opposition. • Get prominent opposition members on side. • Often through “pacts.”

8. Romania Argentina Greece East Germany ReplacementsExamples Typically personal dictatorships.

9. Replacements • Regime dominated by hardliners. • Opposition gains strength until government collapses or is overthrown. • Military support of opposition usually key. • Clean break with past. • Leaders of old regime often face nasty fates.

10. Poland Czechoslovakia South Africa TransplacementsExamples

11. Transplacements • Combined actions of government and opposition. • Government and opposition both realize they are not powerful enough to determine regime type. • Characterized by negotiations, flip-flops. • Softliners & moderates come to feel bound together by fate.

12. Balance of Power between Sides in Negotiations(Przeworski)

13. Balance of Power between Sides in Negotiations • Scenario 1: • Balance of forces is known and uneven institutional arrangements that ratify this balance. • E.g. Chile 1932.

14. Balance of Power between Sides in Negotiations • Scenario 2: • Balance of forces known to be equal  several potential outcomes: • civil war (e.g. Russia 1993, Argentina 1800s); • institutions that don’t work; • institutions that work and are durable (e.g. Poland 1989).

15. Balance of Power between Sides in Negotiations • Scenario 3: • Balance of forces unknown  institutions will include extensive checks and balances and will be durable.

16. Pact-Making

17. “Pact”?? “An explicit...agreement among a select set of actors which seeks to define rules governing the exercise of power on the basis of mutual guarantees for the ‘vital interests’ of those entering into it.” O’Donnell & Schmitter, p. 37

18. Timing of Pacts • Can occur at any time, early or late in liberalizing process. • Early-stage pact includes few actors. • Most common in later stages, when both sides realize that neither can impose ideal arrangement.

19. Afghan Case • Bonn Agreement (Dec. 5, 2001). • Loya jirga as interim Afghan administration: • Representative, but not fully democratic. • 2002: selected transitional government to govern until elections. • 2003: negotiated and approved constitution.

20. South African Case • 1990: ANC and National Party agreed to form congress to draft interim constitution. • 1991-1992: CODESA met, included 17 parties and regional governments. • 1991 Declaration of Intent (on website) • 1992: CODESA collapse  Mandela and de Klerk negotiations • Sept. 1992: Record of Understanding (on website) • 1993: MPNP drafted interim constitution. • 1994: First full election, interim constitution in force. • Elected parliament formed Constitutional Assembly to write final constitution. • 1997: Final constitution in force.

21. Other examples of Pacted Regimes • Venezuela (1958) • Pact of Punto Fijo • Colombia (1957) • Spain (1975) • Poland (1989)