Pluralism by Default: Weak Autocrats and the Rise of Competitive Politics

Pluralism by Default: Weak Autocrats and the Rise of Competitive Politics
ISBN-10
1421418126
ISBN-13
9781421418124
Category
Political Science
Pages
274
Language
English
Published
2015-12-04
Publisher
JHU Press
Author
Lucan Way

Description

"Focusing on regime trajectories across three countries in the former Soviet Union (Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine), Lucan Way argues that democratic political competition has often been grounded less in well-designed institutions or emerging civil society, and more in the failure of authoritarianism. In many cases, pluralism has persisted because autocrats have been too weak to steal elections, repress opposition, or keep allies in line. Attention to the dynamics of this "pluralism by default" reveals an important but largely unrecognized contradiction in the transition process in many countries - namely, that the same factors that facilitate democratic and semi-democratic political competition may also thwart the development of stable, well-functioning democratic institutions. Weak states and parties - factors typically seen as sources of democratic failure - can also undermine efforts to crack down on political opposition and concentrate political control"--

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