Date of Award

2013

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Hicks, Barbara

Keywords

Democracy, Democratization, Transition, Diffusion, Regional Effects

Area of Concentration

Political Science

Abstract

This project examines regional waves of democratization by determining whether certain characteristics differentiate leading countries from their followers in the region. While the presence of regional effects is robustly supported, there is no consensus as to why they transpire, and although numerous theories compete to explain democratization, few have been directly engaged to examine these regional phenomena. This study evaluates the explanatory power of three families of democratization theories – modernization, political opportunity, and external influence – and outlines several features of leaders of the democratizing trends in Latin America, Southeast Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, and the Middle East and North Africa. Employing a mixed methods approach, this project uses both quantitative and qualitative analysis. Economic data and social indicators serve as proxies for modernization, Freedom House political rights and civil liberties scores indicate opportunity, and the KOF Index of Globalization approximates exogenous factors in order to allow for inter- and intra-regional comparison. Then, historical case studies contextualize the numerical descriptions by delving into unquantifiable elements of political opportunity structures and regional dynamics. Although the findings support no single theoretical school, several patterns spanning the three families emerge. First, leaders may or may not have the largest economies in their respective regions, but they do not have the smallest. Likewise, their regime types are not consistent (although none are among the most repressive), but they tend to possess stronger civil liberties than political rights. Indeed, all regional leaders have legacies of civil society, even if those networks are ideologically diverse or not the most prevalent in the anti-regime activity analyzed here. There is also divergence among regions in terms of leaders' levels of globalization, but all are more politically globalized than their respective regions. Finally, both leaders within a region possess similar political opportunity structures and paths towards transition, and violence in all leading cases, regardless of region, is limited.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida Libraries, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

Download

Share

COinS