Military Coup or People's Revolution? The Effect of Protests on Democratiation

• In Event: Civil Society, Protest, and Democratization

Abstract

Under what conditions does popular mobilization successfully initiate democratic transition? Although it is clear that popular mobilization affects a regime’s stability, there is no consensus about the effect of popular mobilization on democratization. As we see from the experience of the Arab revolts from 2011, the outcomes of these strong mobilization vary across cases. To examine the mechanisms of how popular mobilization leads to democratization, we also need to take into account the agency that intermediates the relationship between them. Since democratic transition is the process where a regime transforms from one to another, it requires a strong opposition candidate who is capable of forming the alternative regime. Thus, I argue that popular movements need to be combined with a strong opposition party if they are to have an effect on the democratic transition. In this study, I examine whether the interaction between the level of popular mobilization and the strength of the opposition party leads to democratization from the authoritarian regime. I use cross-national time-series data from 117 non-democracies within the time period 1972 to 2014, to demonstrate that large popular movements increase the level of democracy only when there is an effective opposition party. In doing so, I show that the organizational development of an opposition party is a necessary condition for popular movements to attain democratization.

Author

• Yuko Sato, University of Missouri at Columbia