Democracy, Dictatorship, and Term Limits

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments The initial idea for this book can be dated to one particular conversation with my friends almost fifteen years ago that we had back at the Central European University in Budapest. I remember us discussing careers of several post-Soviet presidents, such as Karimov, Lukashenko or Niyazov, who at that time were busy rewriting constitutions to their advantage. We tried to imagine what else could these political leaders do if they had stepped down from power, and we simply could not. We could hardly see these leaders working in private sectors, as goodwill ambassadors or running their own nonprofit foundations. In fact, no matter how we looked at it, being in office appeared to be the best and safest thing that ever happened to these individuals. Since then I have thought a lot about the motivation of rulers in transitional and developing countries, what was at stake for them and what implications their behavior had for democracy. The questions of career concerns of the national political leaders, presidential confrontations with term limits and their consequences for democratic consolidation received no systematic attention in comparative democratization literature at that time. Ultimately, this and related puzzles led me to turn to academic research for answers. Post-Soviet presidents still provide almost half of the illustrative examples used in this book — this is because of my familiarity with the region — the other half, however, hail from the rest of the world, mainly from Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa; statistical analyses center on all the world presidents. From the existing scholarship I have learnt a lot about about the role of institutions, economic performance, international environment and other factors behind political regimes’ stability and change. Throughout this book, references to various scholars who work in comparative democratization should also be treated as a sign of my acknowledgment and indebtedness. Without their guidance this book would not have been written. This book would also not have been written without funding received from the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences, xiv Acknowledgments as well as from Dublin City University’s Early Career Start Award. They enabled me to gather the required data and, crucially, gave sufficient time to contemplate and finish the book. Special thanks go to my colleagues at the School of Law and Government of Dublin City University to whom all, with their patience and understanding over my frequent absences at whatever I was required to attend, as well as their encouragement and enthusiasm, I am indebted. Their subtle sense of humor is also what makes this department such a pleasant place to work. Some of the arguments presented in this book draw on earlier conference papers presented at the Midwest Political Science Association and American Political Science Association Annual Meetings in 2005–7. I would like to thank the participants for their insightful comments and suggestions, in particular Jason Brownlee and Jennifer Gandhi. Also, an early and condensed version of the argument made in chapter 4 and tested in chapter 6 was published as “The Stakes of Losing Office, Term Limits and Democracy,” British Journal of Political Science 40(3): 635–62 (2010). I am grateful to Cambridge University Press for allowing me to reprint parts of this paper. The book manuscript was written in 2009–10; subsequently I updated it (e.g., time in office) to the end of 2011. While researching and writing this book I received very valuable feedback from scholars and practitioners alike. I have been fortunate to interact and discuss my work with, and wish to thank, Kenneth Benoit, Sarah Birch, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Randall Calvert, John Doyle, Michael Gallagher, Ronald Hill, Marc Howard, Roland Kovats, John Kubinec, Michael Marsh, Gail McElroy, Peter McCrossan, Iain McMenamin , Azra Naseem, Daudi Nyaluke, Sanja Pesek, Joanna Rohozinska, Katya Ryabiko, and Vasily Vaschanka. I am especially thankful to my friends and fellow political scientists David Doyle, Robert Elgie, Jos Elkink, Julia Gray, Slava Mikhailov and Eoin O’Malley for reading and commenting on various parts of this manuscript. I would also like to thank Michael Laver, the editor of the series; the anonymous reviewers; and Melody Herr and Andrea Olson at the University of Michigan Press. Any errors and omissions are entirely mine. Most importantly, I would like to thank my wife and daughter for understanding my absence and absent-mindedness while writing this book. My wife also proved that AutoCAD can be used not only in the interior architecture and design but also in political...