Advantages And Disadvantages Of Democratization

Background

Democratization can be understood in three different ways. For one, it is the introduction of democracy in a non-democratic regime. Next, democratization can be understood as the deepening of the democratic qualities of given democracies. Finally democratization involves the question of the survival of democracy. Technically speaking, the emergence, and the survival of democracy are strictly distinct aspects of democratization. But they merge in the question of sustainable democratization, that is, the emergence of democracies that develop and endure. Democratization is sustainable to the extent to which it advances in response to pressures from within a society (Welzel 2009).

In its literal meaning, ‘government by the people’,

Barbara Gedds argues that the type of authoritarian regime shapes the chances of democracy to emerge. She differentiates three types of authoritarian regimes: personalistic regimes, military regimes, and single-party regimes. By means of their institutional variation, these regimes are supposed to be vulnerable to different degrees to democratizing forces, as they offer different opportunities for regime opponents and command different resources to restrict their radius. Indeed, these three types of authoritarianism are vulnerable in different degrees to mass regime opposition (Welzel 2009). But the point is that all three of them are more likely to break down and to transit to democracy under the pressure of anti-regime

Depending on the nature and extent of these control deficits, authoritarian regimes offer democratic forces different opportunities to merge into a democratic mass movement. But the opportunity structures do not by themselves create these mass movements and that no authoritarian regime has the power to foreclose opportunities forever. Once the resources and values that make people capable and willing to struggle for freedoms have emerged, people will find and create opportunities to join forces in mass democracy movements. Provided such movements grow strong enough, no authoritarian regime can resist them forever, regardless what institutional type of authoritarian regime it