Abstract: successful application of direct mail, whilst 2008 would see the extensive use of the internet as a fundraising tool, information provider, and source of networking to generate people on the ground. The Obama team would prove adept at utilizing this new technology, as they are so far proving in 2012 with the complex use of social networking sites. Chapter 7 offers a very useful insight into the population changes that are occurring in the USA. The next 40 years will see more people speaking Spanish in the USA than English. One profound impact of this is the growing Latino vote – whoever succeeds in attracting this vote may find it the key to electoral success in the future, particularly as a significant percentage live in swing states. A serious student of American elections would find little that is new in this book. Indeed, if I have one criticism of the book it would be that it is too short at 147 pages and would benefit from a deeper level of analysis. But the thematic approach centred on Grant Park does allow a useful snapshot to be taken of how American elections have changed significantly since 1968. As such, it provides a helpful introduction to anyone new to the process. There is nothing in the world like an American presidential election, and this book reminds us again of how intriguing, and dumbfounding, they can be, combining both the best and the worst that democracy has to offer.

Abstract: Competitive authoritarianism: hybrid regimes after the Cold War, by Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2010, 536 pp., £60 (hardback), ISBN 0521882524 and £21.99 (p...

Abstract: Conflicting objectives are often problematized as challenges to the effectiveness of international democracy promotion. However, systematic research about their emergence and effects is still missing. This special issue addresses this research gap and seeks to provide conceptual and empirical answers in the field of conflicting objectives in international democracy promotion. The authors represented in this special issue investigate (post-) conflict societies, developing countries, and authoritarian regimes, attempting to identify the patterns of conflicting objectives in democracy promotion, the reasons for their emergence, and their consequences. This introduction presents a conceptual framework that pursues four aims: first, it differentiates between two types of conflicting objectives (intrinsic and extrinsic); second, it offers an approach for identification of their phases of emergence; third, it proposes reasons for their emergence; and fourth, it discusses how political actors deal with these conf...

Abstract: Relationships between democracy and more particularly democratization on the one side and climate change and responses to that on the other are underexplored in the two literatures on democratization and climate change. A complex web exists, characterized by interdependence and reciprocal effects. These must be plotted in as systematic and comprehensive a way as possible. Only then can we establish whether democratization really matters for climate change and for responding adequately to the challenges it poses. And only then can we assess the consequences that a changing climate might have for democracy and democratization. Implications follow for international efforts to support the spread of democracy around the world and for climate governance. This collection of theoretically informed and empirically rooted studies combines insights from academics and more policy-oriented writers. A major objective is to facilitate dialogue among not just analysts of democracy, democratization and climate change but ...

Abstract: Between 2000 and 2005, colour revolutions swept away authoritarian and semi-authoritarian regimes in Serbia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine. Yet, after these initial successes, attempts to replicate strategies failed to produce regime change elsewhere in the region. This introductory article argues that students of democratization and democracy promotion should study not only the successful colour revolutions, but also the colour revolution prevention strategies adopted by authoritarian elites. The article proposes a new typology of authoritarian reactions to the challenge of democratization and presents the main findings of the special issue, devoted to the analysis of authoritarian reactions to colour revolution in the post-communist region and in Iran.

Abstract: Nonviolent revolutions: civil resistance in the late 20th century, by Sharon Erickson Nepstad, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011, xi + 137 pp., notes, references, index, $24.95 (paperback), ISB...

Abstract: While there is much debate about the merits of dichotomous versus continuous measures of democracy, surprisingly little attention is paid to the question as to how to go from degree to dichotomy. This study identifies no less than 38 different ways in which Freedom House and Polity scores have been used to distinguish between democracies and non-democracies. The analysis shows that it is difficult to draw the line in measures of democracy, even for Freedom House and Polity themselves. These problems are illustrated with the help of a recent study on democratization in Africa. The conclusion formulates some guidelines for good practice and points at the potential of disaggregated scores to distinguish between democracy and dictatorship.

Abstract: What explains bloc voting among ethnic groups in Africa? Using the Herfindahl Hirschman Index of Concentration on partisan preference data from the Afrobarometer, this article tests several hypotheses regarding the explanation as to why some ethnic groups: (1) express voting preferences as a bloc; (2) express voting preferences as a bloc for the governing party or the opposition. This article found that the geographic concentration of the group best explained general bloc voting. In terms of the direction of support, the degree to which a group is discriminated against and politically mobilized explains bloc voting against the governing party, whereas bloc voting for the governing party is explained by the extent to which the governing party is politically dominant. This suggests that the prospects for patronage helps explain voting as a bloc for most all groups, except those that face discrimination and are politically mobilized.

Abstract: Using in-depth case studies of a wide-range of political, social and economic reforms in contemporary China this volume sheds light on the significance and consequences of institutional change for stability of the political system in China. The contributors examine how reforms shape and change Communist rule and Chinese society, and to what extent they may engender new legitimacy for the CCP regime and argue that authoritarian regimes like the PRC can successfully generate stability in the same way as democracies. Topics addressed include: • ideological reform, • rural taxfor-fees reforms, • elections in villages and urban neighbourhood communities, • property rights in rural industries, • endogenous political constraints of transition, • internalising capital markets, • the media market in transition, • the current social security system, • the labour market • environmental policy reforms to anti-poverty policies and NGOs. Exploring the possibility of legitimate one-party rule in China, this book is a stimulating and informative read for students and scholars interested in political science and Chinese politics.

Abstract: In recent years, a number of studies have examined the relationship between ethnic fractionalization and democracy – so far with inconclusive results. We argue that the lacking robustness of existing findings is due to a theoretical and empirical misspecification of how ethnic fractionalization may influence the level of democracy. Ethnic fractionalization does have an impact on the regime form because it moderates the well-established positive effect of modernization on democracy. In other words, at low levels of ethnic fractionalization, modernization has a strong positive effect on democratization, but with increasing levels of ethnic fractionalization, the positive effect of modernization decreases. This relationship is documented empirically by using data on 167 countries since 1972.

Abstract: The EU is facing a serious conflict of objectives in the Western Balkans, primarily between security interests calling for the rapid integration of these countries and its interest in democratization, which demands a stricter democracy promotion agenda and cautions against a rushed enlargement round including unconsolidated states. I argue that the EU's approach, which enforces both security and democracy through one instrument, namely, political conditionality, has yielded only limited success and has contributed to the emergence of a conflict of objectives for a number of reasons. First, to render its conditionality policy credible and consistent, the EU has been forced to prioritize security at the expense of democracy promotion. Second, compliance patterns in the two areas have differed, resulting in a conditionality dilemma that forces the EU to sanction compliance or reward non-compliance. And third, the use of political conditionality in security issues has generated counterproductive side effects ...

Abstract: This article argues that Azerbaijan did not display a backlash against the ‘colour revolutions’ in the post-Soviet space because the primary threat to the regime came from within, and not from below. Thanks to the overlap of power and property in Azerbaijan, the ruling elite's revenues from oil resources, and the failure of international actors to support the opposition, civil society did not pose a major challenge to the regime's dominance during the ‘revolutionary’ period in the mid-2000s. However, there was a risk that the regime could fragment due to factional in-fighting. President Heydar Aliyev had laboured to consolidate power throughout the 1990s after years of turmoil, and, although Azerbaijan was stable by 2003, his passing did not guarantee a smooth transition. Instead, his successor – his son, Ilham – had to carefully manage rival factions to maintain the political status quo. The article argues that scholars of post-Soviet politics, though usually drawn to formal political opposition as a sou...

Abstract: Why do peace and democracy not often go together in countries emerging from violent civil conflicts? If the promotion of peace and democracy are conflicting objectives, what are the sources of the problem? Based on the conceptual distinction between short-term peace-making and long-term peace-building that incorporates democracy promotion as an essential component, this article argues that peace-making and democracy promotion often constitute a conflictual relationship when external actors impose a particular set of institutional arrangements – namely, power-sharing agreements – in order to end civil war as quickly as possible. The sharing of power between governments and rebels can be effective at reducing the security dilemma and credible commitment problems in the transition from civil war to peace, but it is a short-term solution and a source of the conflict between peace-making and democracy promotion. This is because power-sharing builds wartime divisions into post-war political structures and provi...

Abstract: The exposure of alleged coup plots in 2007 has shaken the guardian role of the Turkish military in politics. What were the conditions that led to the exposure of the coups and what is their significance for the future of Turkish democracy? Drawing on insights from southern Europe, the article argues that failed coup plots can lead to democratic civil–military relations especially if they work simultaneously with other facilitating conditions, such as increasing acceptance of democratic attitudes among officers, consensus among civilians over the role of the military, and the influence of external actors, such as the European Union. The article focuses on such domestic and international factors to analyse the transformation of the Turkish military, the splits within the armed forces and the resulting plots. It argues that one positive outcome of the exposed conspiracies in Turkey has been the enactment of new institutional amendments that would eradicate the remaining powers of the military. Yet, a negativ...

Abstract: In this article we discuss the failure of social movement theories to adequately understand and theorize locally based, grassroots social movements like the landless workers movement in Brazil, ‘livability movements’ in third-world cities, and living wage movements in the USA. Movements such as these come to the attention of most social movement analysts only when the activists who participate in them come together in the streets of Seattle or international forums like the World Social Forum. To date, it is the transnational character of these protests that have excited the most attention. Building on scholarship that looks at the link between participatory democracy and social movements, this article takes a different tack. We show how some social movements have shifted their repertoire of practices from large mass events aimed at making demands on the national state to local-level capacity building. It is the local struggles, especially the ways in which they have created and used institutions in civil ...

Abstract: Democratic reform processes often go hand in hand with expectations of social welfare improvements. While the connection between the emergence of democracy and the development of welfare states in the West has been the object of several studies, however, there is a scant empirical literature on the effects of recent democratization processes on welfare policies in developing countries. This is particularly true for Africa. In a dramatically poor environment, Africans often anticipated that the democratic reforms many sub-Saharan states undertook during the early 1990s would deliver welfare dividends. This article investigates whether and how the advent of democracy affected social policies – focusing, in particular, on health policy – by examining one of the continent’s most successful cases of recent democratization (Ghana) and comparing it with developments in a country of enduring authoritarian rule (Cameroon). Evidence shows that democracy can indeed be instrumental to the expansion and strengthening of social policies. In Ghana, new participatory and competitive pressures pushed the government towards devising and adopting an ambitious health

Abstract: Many approaches to supporting democracy in developing countries have been affected by recent international reforms geared towards improving aid effectiveness through better harmonizing interventions and greater alignment to recipient countries' strategies The paradigmatic instrument for these attempts has been direct budget support, whereby donors attempt not only to promote poverty reduction but also to achieve the institutional modernization conducive to public sector reforms and democratic accountability However, based on empirical evidence from a recent evaluation of budget support in Zambia, this article argues that attempts at harmonization among donors can be easily hampered by varying interpretations of the goal hierarchy of budget support In the course of the Multi-Donor Budget Support process in Zambia, some donors have prioritized the financing function of the instrument, while others have emphasized its potential influence on institutional reforms While some harmonization efforts proved su

Abstract: Disputes over the outcome of the June 2009 presidential election in Iran rapidly developed into a contest about the legitimacy of the Islamic state. Far from being a dispute between religious and non-religious forces, the main protagonists in the conflict represented divergent articulations of state–religion relations within an Islamic context. In contrast to the authoritarian legitimisation of an Islamic state, the Islamic reformation discourse is based on secular-democratic articulations of state–religion relations. This article focuses on the ideas of four leading Iranian religious scholars who advocate a secular-democratic conceptualisation of state authority. Disputing the religious validity of divine sovereignty, they promote the principle of popular sovereignty based on Islamic sources and methods. This reformist conceptualisation is rooted in the notion that Islam and the secular-democratic state are complementary.

Abstract: Despite a growing interest in African parties, no comparative analyses of African party manifestos have been undertaken to date. This study applies the Manifesto Research Group's (MRG/CMP) coding scheme to a complete set of manifestos in three countries. The study's main aim is to determine whether a research tool that has been seminal in the study of Western politics can be used to advance the study of political parties in nonindustrialized societies. In a first step, the article examines the extent to which African manifestos advance programmatic ideas. The results show great differences across parties and time. The study subsequently investigates how parties position themselves on a right–left spectrum; it further outlines which policy categories African parties stress most. Finally, it examines the stance of individual parties on specific policy issues. The study argues that the MRG coding scheme can contribute to a much more nuanced analysis of African parties.

Abstract: The article focuses on the aftermath of the colour revolutions by analysing and questioning the real success, as often depicted by the West, of democracy promotion in the East European region. First of all, the article challenges the conventional logic of democracy promotion – even when backed by moral reasoning and resource availability – as sufficient and adequate for instigating democratic change in non-liberal regimes. By examining the case of Belarus it further contends that authoritarian regimes effectively learn to resist and counteract foreign-led democracy promotion, and often do so legitimately, with a minimal use of force. The article concludes that in order to exercise democracy promotion (if such a thing is possible at all) a far deeper understanding of autocratic narratives is needed, associated with a much closer look at societal norms and values, as well as an individual country's geopolitical resources and strategies.

Abstract: While some types of democracy can sustain ethnic and cultural diversity, others can clearly undermine it. In The Dark Side of Democracy, Michael Mann argues that extreme crimes like genocide and ethnic cleansing tend to occur, or at least be legitimized, within a majoritarian democracy framework. This article broadens Mann's approach in two directions: first, it confirms that majoritarian democracy in plural societies can provide the pre-existing institutional context where conflict, nationalism and exclusion can thrive, eventually degenerating into self-destruction. Second, it focuses on the tendency by some governments to turn to patriotism and populism as sources of legitimacy at a time when the latter appears to be crumbling. In addition, the article questions both the ‘democratic peace’ and the ‘failed democratization’ approaches for their reliance on an ideal type and fixed notion of democracy, arguing that the latter has been weakened by neoliberal globalization, particularly as it interacts with t...

Abstract: Institution-building under the aegis of international administration has faced various hurdles and obstacles in Kosovo and Timor-Leste. One particular hurdle is related to the mandates of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo and United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor, which created a conflict of objectives for the external actors – specifically, between institution-building and local empowerment. This article analyses the strategies of international administrators and local elites in this context. After attempting to prioritize institution-building while paying lip-service to imperatives of empowerment, international officials were forced to readjust their strategy as a result of opposition and resistance from local partners. In light of the practical consequences of the conflict of objectives, international officials proceeded to prioritize local empowerment, reducing their institution-building role. The article concludes by identifying the implications of these e...

Abstract: This article suggests that in most semi-democracies, the same solution might not be that favourable to minorities. Many semi-democratic countries either restrict party competition or limit parties of ethnic minorities, including: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kirgistan, Cameron, Equatorial Guinea, Tanzania, Gabon, Kenya, Mauritania, and Congo (Brazzaville). This article highlights the impact of the electoral system and the importance of political plurality and electoral district design in such contexts. The article argues that the interests of minorities are best protected if they can elect their representatives in small, ethnically homogeneous electoral districts. Plurality or majority voting systems offer minorities the possibility to run with independent candidates. The case study in this article elections to municipal councils in Georgia in 2006 under a mixed electoral system seem to reflect the hypothesized pattern.

Abstract: A growing body of academic literature is devoted to the normative evaluation of rival governance architectures and policy mechanisms designed to mitigate the risks associated with global climate change. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) of 1992, the Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC of 1997 and the Copenhagen Accord ‘noted’ by the UNFCCC of 2009, have all been the subject of intense analysis in this literature. Typically, the emphasis of normative analyses of climate governance have focused on the environmental effectiveness, economic efficiency, and global distributive consequences of alternative climate architectures and policy mechanisms. A neglected line of evaluation, however, has been the performance of these climate architectures, and the policies they systematize, in terms of normative ideals whose meaning and significance cannot be fully captured in terms of the goal to improve environmental quality at least economic cost and with minimal worsening of existing global i...

Abstract: Making democratic citizens in Spain: civil society and the popular origins of the transition, 1960–78, by Pamela Beth Radcliff, Basingstoke and New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, xviii + 416 pp., ...

Abstract: Islamism. Religion, radicalization, and resistance, by Anders Strindberg and Mats Warn, Cambridge, UK, Polity, 2011, vii + 238 pp., index, £15.99 (paperback), ISBN 978-0-7456-4062-4 What is ‘Islami...

Abstract: This article argues that recent de-democratization in Iran can be best understood by analysing the interplay of domestic Iranian politics and two external developments. These were the colour revolutions in several post-communist states and the hostile US policies toward Iran after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Together they generated a political climate in Iran conducive to hardliner attempts to discredit and neutralize the reformist opposition. The regime tried to delegitimize the opposition by portraying it as being in the service of foreign elements and claiming it was seeking to foment a popular uprising. The consequences were twofold. On the one hand, the regime's identification of civic and political activism as threats to national security greatly reduced the manoeuvrability of the reformist opposition and contributed to their marginalization. These developments point to the limits and unintended consequences of democracy promotion in Iran. On the other hand, the post-electoral protests of 2009 exp...

Abstract: This article explores the literature on democratization to account for the proscription of political parties in democratizing states. A survey of 22 party bans in 12 European states identifies two distinct classes of proscription derived from the ‘degree of democratization’ present in a banning state. I identify features of ‘new’ and ‘incomplete’ democracies that help explain proscription. Case studies on Germany, Austria, Russia, Latvia and Greece illustrate the impact of ‘modes of transition’, heightened uncertainty, political tensions and instability on ‘new democracy bans’, and the impact of illiberalism, limited checks on executive power and circumscribed political participation on ‘incomplete democracy bans’.

Abstract: Uzbekistan contains all the ingredients that observers have long argued would lead to not only regime change but civil war: economic, political and religious repression. Despite the presence of these factors, the autocratic regime in Uzbekistan has remained remarkably stable in the face of revolutions in neighbouring countries. This article suggests three complementary reasons why the regime has remained firm as others crumbled around it, including relatively strong economic performance, state capacity to repress revolutionary aspirations and government co-optation of local institutions. Understanding autocratic stability requires that we move beyond the ‘agency-structure’ debates that pervade the literature on post-communist institutional development toward a more encompassing explanation that recognizes how institutional and structural factors both liberate and constrain individual choices.