Domestic Perspectives on Contemporary Democracy

2. Problems of Democratic Transition in Divided Societies

2 Problems of Democratic Transition in Divided Societies jack snyder Moments of transition toward democracy are fraught with the danger of violence in ethnically divided societies. Democratization is typically intertwined with the rise of nationalism, a doctrine that demands self-rule for the nation. At such heady moments, nationalist movements in multiethnic societies often forge competing national aspirations. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, wars or large-scale civil violence broke out following experiments with mass electoral democracy in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Burundi, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Lebanon, Pakistan, the Palestinian territories, Russia, and the former Yugoslavia (Mansfield and Snyder 2005). Elections did not cause the fighting in Iraq, but their polarizing effect did nothing to dampen it. Multiethnic societies that undertake a transition to democracy are, moreover, more likely to revert to authoritarianism than are homogeneous societies (Przeworski 2000). In this context, ethnicity is an especially potent axis of cleavage because ethnic groups typically combine the characteristics of size, territoriality, dense social networks, and historic myths that make national self-determination a plausible goal for the group (Hechter 2000; Smith 1986). Nonetheless, ethnicity is not the only cleavage that endangers democratic transitions. Since the French Revolution, the transition to mass politics, including electoral politics, has often energized divisions over class, religion, ideology, region, tradition versus modernity, and urban versus rural interests. These cleavages , including ethnicity, are no longer crippling once a society navigates the turbulent transition. In mature, stable democracies, such cleavages are i-xii_1-180_Nard.indd 11 2/6/08 4:27:07 PM 12 . jack snyder often politicized, but parties and interest groups that define themselves in these terms play by democratic rules. The turbulent dawn of the era of mass politics forces political elites to make momentous strategic choices. Those who want to consolidate democracy need to decide whether to work within the constraints of existing cleavages or to create disincentives to politicize those cleavages. Those who want to wreck the democratic project that threatens them need to decide whether to suppress mass participation or promote a populist ideology to hijack it for their own purposes. And those who want to advance the narrow goals of their group need to decide whether democracy or authoritarianism serves their interests best. Sometimes these choices can lead to unintended consequences. Seemingly expedient strategies to speed the democratic transition in the short run, such as ethnofederalism or power-sharing arrangements, may lock in cleavages that bedevil efforts to consolidate democracy later. Moreover, institutional solutions that work well in mature democracies, where institutions are strong, may be counterproductive or simply irrelevant in transitional democracies, where participatory institutions are ineffectual and easily exploited for antidemocratic ends. This chapter examines the strategic choices that elites do make—or could make—in transitions. It stresses the need to take into account sequencing and context to avoid unintended consequences. The first section discusses the reasons why democratization causes violence and the factors that make transitions go smoothly or not. Subsequent sections discuss the archaeology of social cleavages that come into play during democratic transitions. A final section assesses commonly advanced policy prescriptions for dealing with cleavage problems in turbulent transitions. Trajectories of Democratization Although the process of democratization tends to increase the risk of war, many countries go through the process peacefully. During the 1980s and 1990s, numerous states consolidated their democratic transitions fairly successfully with little if any external or internal violence. These fortunate cases included many in the southern cone of South America, in northeastern Europe , and in East Asia. South Africa, too, despite some internal violence, experienced a reasonably smooth transition. These countries had a number of important advantages. They tended to enjoy relatively high per capita income and literacy; thus, their citizens had i-xii_1-180_Nard.indd 12 2/6/08 4:27:08 PM democratic transition in divided societies · 13 the resources and skills to build the institutions and civil society organizations that democracy needs. Before the transition began, many of these success cases had well-developed state institutions and, in particular, administrative bureaucracies that functioned in a reasonably efficient way to advance state objectives with minimal corruption. Some of these successful states enjoyed the benefit of some past experience with independent legal and journalistic institutions that could be adapted for use by the democratizing state. In most of these states, powerful elites did not feel threatened by a successful transition to democracy, in part because trusted state institutions made...