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The third wave of democratization has given way to a reverse wave of autocratization. A critical question is what can be done to prevent democratic breakdowns and make democracy endure. A large body of historical-narrative and small-N... more
The third wave of democratization has given way to a reverse wave of autocratization. A critical question is what can be done to prevent democratic breakdowns and make democracy endure. A large body of historical-narrative and small-N comparative scholarship has suggested that an active mobilized civil society and institutionalized political parties can be mobilized to protect democracy from authoritarian takeovers. We provide the first rigorous set of empirical analyses to test this argument using data from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project for the period from 1900 to 2010. We find that both exert a robust, independent, and substantial effect on the survival of democracies. These findings have important policy implications for the international community.
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We show how the V-Dem data opens new possibilities for studying civil society in comparative politics. We explain how V-Dem was able to extract embedded expert knowledge to create a novel set of civil society indicators for 173 countries... more
We show how the V-Dem data opens new possibilities for studying civil society in comparative politics. We explain how V-Dem was able to extract embedded expert knowledge to create a novel set of civil society indicators for 173 countries from 1900 to the present. This data overcomes shortcomings in the basis on which inference has been made about civil society in the past by avoiding problems of sample bias that make generalization difficult or tentative. We begin with a discussion of the reemergence of civil society as a central concept in comparative politics. We then turn to the shortcomings of the existing data and discusses how the V-Dem data can overcome them. We introduce the new data, highlighting two new indices—the core civil society index (CCSI) and the civil society participation index (CSPI)—and explain how the individual indicators and the indices were created. We then demonstrate how the CCSI uses embedded expert knowledge to capture the development of civil society o...
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W e have the honor and privilege to publish this year’s Presidential Address, “Crises, Race, Acknowledgment: The Centrality of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics to the Future of Political Science,” by Paula D. McClain of Duke University.... more
W e have the honor and privilege to publish this year’s Presidential Address, “Crises, Race, Acknowledgment: The Centrality of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics to the Future of Political Science,” by Paula D. McClain of Duke University. Professor McClain has had a distinguished career. Before her present position at Duke, where she serves as Dean of Social Sciences and the CoDirector of the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in the Social Sciences, she taught at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Arizona State University, and the University of Virginia. She has also served as the President of the Southern Political Science Association and as Vice President of the International Political Science Association. Her research centers on the politics of race and urban politics. She is the award-winning author and editor of several books including “Can We All Get Along?” Racial and Ethnic Minorities in American Politics (seven editions between 1995 and 2017, co-authored wi...
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The concept of totalitarianism emerged between the two world wars in twentieth-century Europe to become a central concept of Cold War social science designed to highlight similarities between the Nazi and Soviet regimes and implicitly to... more
The concept of totalitarianism emerged between the two world wars in twentieth-century Europe to become a central concept of Cold War social science designed to highlight similarities between the Nazi and Soviet regimes and implicitly to contrast these forms of dictatorship with liberal democracy. While in the 1960s and 1970s many critics challenged the concept’s Cold War uses as an ideology of “the West,” the idea of totalitarianism and later “post-totalitarianism” played important roles in East Central Europe, where they helped dissident intellectuals, academics, and activists both to understand and to challenge Soviet-style communism. The concept of “totalitarianism” remains heavily contested. But whatever one thinks about the concept’s social scientific validity, there can be no doubt that it played a crucial role in both the scholarship of communism and the public intellectual debates about the possibilities of post-communism. Aviezer Tucker’s The Legacies of Totalitarianism: A...
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Subversive Institutions: The Design and the Destruction of Socialism and the State. By Valerie Bunce. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. 206p. $54.95 cloth, $19.95 paper. - Postsocialist Pathways: Transforming Politics and Property in East Central Europe. By David Stark and László Brusz...more
SUBVERSIVE INSTITUTIONS The Design and the Destruction of Socialism and the State From 1989 to 1992, all of the socialist dictatorships in Europe (including the Soviet Union) collapsed, as did the Soviet bloc. Yugoslavia, the Soviet... more
SUBVERSIVE INSTITUTIONS The Design and the Destruction of Socialism and the State From 1989 to 1992, all of the socialist dictatorships in Europe (including the Soviet Union) collapsed, as did the Soviet bloc. Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, and Czechoslovakia ...
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This essay addresses two controversies on the relationship between civil society and democratization in post-communist countries. It contradicts a tendency to dismiss civil society as a myth, ideology, or framing device for social... more
This essay addresses two controversies on the relationship between civil society and democratization in post-communist countries. It contradicts a tendency to dismiss civil society as a myth, ideology, or framing device for social movements and instead demonstrates that civil society is a real material force that has played a critical role in democratic breakthroughs in the region. It also criticizes the tendency to characterize post-communist civil society as either strong or weak in a blanket fashion. Instead, it shows that looking at differences in the strength of civil society at moments of transition is a good indicator of how durable that transition will be. This is illustrated with empirical work on both the breakthrough years of 1989-1991 and the period of the color revolutions in the 2000s.
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A weasel word is a term used in academic or political discourse whose meaning is so imprecise or badly defined that it impedes the formulation of coherent thought on the subject to which it is applied, or leads to unsubstantiated... more
A weasel word is a term used in academic or political discourse whose meaning is so imprecise or badly defined that it impedes the formulation of coherent thought on the subject to which it is applied, or leads to unsubstantiated conclusions. In this symposium we consider several key terms central to the study of postcommunist politics and discuss the extent to which they fall into this category. The terms discussed here include regime terminology, the notion of postcommunism, the geographic entity “Eurasia,” socialism, populism, and neoliberalism. While the authors come to different conclusions about the extent to which these terms are weasel words, they also provide pointers for how to deploy terms in ways that are consistent with the underlying concept and thus aid in the cumulation of knowledge about the region.
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This paper reviews Barrington Moore's thesis concerning the bourgeoisie and historical emergence of democracy and its on-going relevance for the study of democratization. It first reviews the statement of the thesis in its classical... more
This paper reviews Barrington Moore's thesis concerning the bourgeoisie and historical emergence of democracy and its on-going relevance for the study of democratization. It first reviews the statement of the thesis in its classical form as a statement of necessary condition -- No bourgeoisie, ...
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... Norman Davies, Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw. New York: Viking, 2004. 752 pp. $32.95. Reviewed by Anna M. Cienciala, University of Kansas ... Anita J. Prazmowska, Civil War in Poland, 1942–1948. New York: Palgrave... more
... Norman Davies, Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw. New York: Viking, 2004. 752 pp. $32.95. Reviewed by Anna M. Cienciala, University of Kansas ... Anita J. Prazmowska, Civil War in Poland, 1942–1948. New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2004. 252 pp. ...
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... Stanislaw Baranczak, Gyorgy Bence, Nancy Bernhard, Simone Chambers, Jane Curry, Emil Freund, Harvey Goldman, Barbara Hicks, Dick Howard, Jan Kubik, Joseph McCahery, Gerd Meyer, John Micgiel, Michael Pollak, Bob Scott, Larry Spence,... more
... Stanislaw Baranczak, Gyorgy Bence, Nancy Bernhard, Simone Chambers, Jane Curry, Emil Freund, Harvey Goldman, Barbara Hicks, Dick Howard, Jan Kubik, Joseph McCahery, Gerd Meyer, John Micgiel, Michael Pollak, Bob Scott, Larry Spence, Rudi Tokes, Louisa Vinton ...
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In the wake of the Cold War, democracy has gained the status of a mantra. 1 Perhaps no concept is as central to policymakers and scholars. 2 Yet, there is no consensus about how to measure democracy such that meaningful comparisons can be... more
In the wake of the Cold War, democracy has gained the status of a mantra. 1 Perhaps no concept is as central to policymakers and scholars. 2 Yet, there is no consensus about how to measure democracy such that meaningful comparisons can be made through time and across countries. Skeptics wonder if such comparisons are possible at all. While this conclusion may seem compelling, one must also consider the costs of not comparing in a systematic fashion. Without some way of analyzing the level of democracy through time ...
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... ИНФОРМАЦИЯ О ПУБЛИКАЦИИ. Название публикации, THE STRIKES OF JUNE 1976 IN POLAND. Авторы, Michael Bernhard. Журнал, East European Politics and Societies. Издательство, Sage Publications. Год выпуска, 1987, ISSN, 0888-3254. Том, 1, ИФ... more
... ИНФОРМАЦИЯ О ПУБЛИКАЦИИ. Название публикации, THE STRIKES OF JUNE 1976 IN POLAND. Авторы, Michael Bernhard. Журнал, East European Politics and Societies. Издательство, Sage Publications. Год выпуска, 1987, ISSN, 0888-3254. Том, 1, ИФ РИНЦ 2009, ...
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Abstract will be provided by author.