ISBN: 978-0-691-21700-0
Eirin Haugseth
NTNU and PRIO
How does democracy
occur and why? In this book, Michael K Miller offers a revised theory of
democratization, where power, context and disruption are
emphasized as the main drivers. Contrary to previous theories arguing that pro-democracy
protests directly affect or cause democratization, Miller suggests that the
occurrence of a shock in the years prior to democratization explains why
we have seen democratic transitions following coups but not in the wake of
Tiananmen Square or in most countries affected by the Arab Spring. Through a
careful examination of 139 democratic transitions from 1800–2014, Miller
presents a comprehensive framework to explain what he identifies as two main
paths to democratization: shocks and electoral continuity. A shock is described
as a disruptive event that disturbs the status quo (such as coups, civil wars,
assassinations, defeat in war or hegemonic withdrawal), while electoral
continuity refers to opening up for elections without intending to democratize.
After outlining the theoretical argument in Chapter 2, the first part of the
book (Chapters 3–6) offers extensive descriptive, qualitative and contextual
evidence to illustrate the paths. The second part of the book (Chapters 7–9)
supports the case illustrations with quantitative analyses, evaluating how
statistical models perform regarding the theoretical expectations and examining
what holds for democratic survival and building durable democracies. To make a
novel contribution in this already crowded research field is an impressive
achievement. Through his ambitious coverage of the universe of cases and
meticulous attention to each transition, Miller presents convincing new
perspectives on the mechanisms behind democratic transitions.