Shock to the System

As the fate of democracy hangs in the balance, Michael K. Miller’s book offers a new framework for understanding how democratization occurs. The main takeaway is simple yet compelling: of the 139 democratic transitions that took place from 1800 to 2014, 127 (that is, a whopping 91 percent) follow one of two paths: shocks or electoral continuity. The numbers speak for themselves. But what are “shocks” and “electoral continuity”? How do they differ from the paths highlighted by previous scholarship on democratization? And what is left out? According to Miller, shocks are significant violent events including domestic elite conflicts (coups, civil wars, and assassinations) and foreign shocks (defeat in war and withdrawal of a hegemon). Electoral continuity, instead, occurs when an established ruling party democratizes because party leaders expect to remain competitive in the new democracy (6). If we read the book as a theory of democratization, Miller’s story is neither economical nor particularly elegant. Shocks are five separate drivers, and electoral continuity is something else entirely. Yet, as the author himself at times acknowledges, we should perhaps evaluate the contribution less as a theory and more as a framework for better understanding and assessing the causes and consequences of known pathways to democracy. If we do so, we immediately dispel two potentially powerful critiques: First, that the relevance of each path has been established before (in the extensive literature on the topic, cited throughout the book). And second, that the paths are so broad that nothing is left out, circumscribing their explanatory power

Democracy · Democratization · Elite · Hegemony · Law and economics · Miller · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Scholarship · Sociology · Local Government Finance and Decentralization · Political Systems and Governance · Post-Soviet Geopolitical Dynamics · Law