Understanding Hybrid Regimes: An Analysis by Larry Diamond, Guide, Progetti e Ricerche di Politica Internazionale

Scarica Understanding Hybrid Regimes: An Analysis by Larry Diamond e più Guide, Progetti e Ricerche in PDF di Politica Internazionale solo su Docsity! Jacqueline Tacconelli Comparative Politics Professor Stefano Procacci November 1, 2021 Report on Larry Diamond’s Thinking About Hybrid Regimes In Thinking About Hybrid Regimes, Larry Diamond stresses the fact that having entered the “third wave” of democratization, it is still not clear what defines democracy and how to classify indefinite regimes. The author tries to address this issue by offering first a paragraph on the various perspectives on democracy given by different political scientists. Then he shifts to a historical point of view with some examples of countries. Furthermore, he talks about the phenomenon of pseudo-democracy to conclude then with a comparison between electoral democracy and authoritarianism. To begin with, Diamond recalls Dahl’s concept of polyarchy, Schumpeter’s minimalist perspective, and Huntington's point of view to underline that their analyses have been important because a rising number of countries have become electoral democracies. However, it is still difficult to understand what characterizes ‘fair, honest, and free elections’, and/or if the results belong to the actual votes. So, to see if those who consider themselves democracies are so, regime classification should observe the real intentions of those rulers. This is because many regimes that hang between democracies and dictatorships, the so-called hybrid regimes, are electoral democracies containing multiparty competition, but they fail to work properly. Already during the 1960-the 70s, countries like Singapore, Malaysia, or Mexico were hybrid regimes and the first two still are. A helpful term when talking about multiparty electoral competition in authoritarian systems is ‘electoral authoritarianism. Another term of the contemporary era is pseudo-democracy, and all hybrid regimes apply to it as they have democratic institutions that hide authoritarian rule. In this case, international intervention is key to preventing electoral manipulations, for instance, of the dictatorship. Some examples of competitive authoritarian regimes are Malaysia, Thailand, etc. In studying the rise of these pseudo-democratic regimes, findings show that the number of democracies has doubled, together with a rapid increase in forms of authoritarian multiparty electoral competition. An explanation can be found in the country's size; indeed, 21 nations that have a population under one million tend to be democracies, while those whose populations are bigger than one million are more likely to be authoritarian systems. As reminded before, democracies workaround inclusiveness, fairness, and freedom in elections, but it is harsh to establish whether these elections have respected these principles. Freedom to campaign asks for freedom of assembly, association, speech, etc. If considering India, which is a democracy, the number of killings of the opposition candidates has risen, and the dramatic increase of corruption has altered the concept of liberal democracy. As Levitsky and Way state, regimes fall into electoral authoritarianism when the conditions for democracy are infringed. It is necessary to remember that no system is the best democracy, as all of them need to be controlled. A crucial aspect of competitive authoritarian regimes is parliamentary opposition. Indeed, in systems where the elections are facing an authoritarian front, the leading party wins the majority of the seats. For example, in 1990 the president of Egypt was re-elected with over 90% of votes and he has been in charge for 21 years confirming the authoritarian power. In conclusion, Diamond’s analysis illustrated that various regimes remain undefined when it comes to classification. As seen, the democracy index turns around political participation, civil freedoms, electoral pluralism, and government functioning. Also, it is relevant to highlight that even the systems that look like perfect democracies have some flaws. Albania could be another great example of a hybrid regime, especially for a decrease in political participation by the population. Report on Larry Diamond’s The Democratic Rollback In Larry Diamond’s The Democratic Rollback – The Resurgence of the Predatory State, the author states that since the half of the 1970s more than 90 countries have moved to democracy; however, recently, it had witnessed a decline. The call to action is to boost emerging democracies to mirror their principles if they do not want to become dictatorships. In developing countries, democracies failed in their governance due to abusive security, incompetent state bureaucracies, corrupt judiciaries, etc. Indeed, here citizens do not have any political participation right and the elections are often fraudulent. Consequently, people do not trust this situation anymore and support authoritarian figures. Therefore, a democracy should respect the citizens’ needs and rights. As already seen in the previous extract, democratic elections should be free and fair. However, in 2008, a Freedom House study found that since 1994 freedom had gone through a deterioration. The Asian Barometer found that between 2001 and 2005, satisfaction with democracy among Filipinos went from 54% to 39%. The main issue is that people lose faith in their politicians and while the majority might agree with democracy, minorities tend to support authoritative alternatives. Another point to address is the link between economy and democracy. The general belief is that economic progress might boost the strengthening of democracy. Yet, this is not always true, like in Kenya. This country witnessed a paramount economic improvement that, unfortunately, led to ethnic violence and a failure in the 2007 elections. The striking connection is poor governance, as for many years, élites gained power through market competition and strong institutions. Hence, they use their power to ‘close’ the economy, making profits that will not be used for society. This is the case of the predatory state, in which citizens are just clients of local bosses and get rich by stealing from the state and the weak. Therefore, the government becomes even more corrupted with killings of the competitive figures in elections and the police do not impose the law, falling into the complete opposite of a sustainable democracy.