Once democracy was extended, it was never again seriously questioned by local elites, even when it taxed them heavily. But this is emphatically not the story of the rest of Europe, most especially not Germany, but also Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and so on. What makes the difference between those countries in which democracy arrives peacefully and is ever after accepted by all—and those in which it is violently contested and continually challenged? That feels no longer a question about bygone times.
It feels very much our question too. Based largely on a study of Western Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, Daniel Ziblatt convincingly offers a surprising and disturbing answer:. The most crucial variable predicting the success of a democratic transition is the self-confidence of the incumbent elites. If they feel able to compete under democratic conditions, they will accept democracy.
If they do not, they will not. And the single thing that most accurately predicts elite self-confidence, as Ziblatt marshals powerful statistical and electoral evidence to argue, is the ability to build an effective, competitive conservative political party before the transition to democracy occurs.
That happened in Britain, but not in Germany, as Ziblatt painstakingly details. If you ever yearned to learn more about German state and local elections under Kaiser Wilhelm II, Ziblatt is here to tell you all about it. Why not in Germany? Or Italy or elsewhere? Building a vote-winning political party is hard work—and work that carries few guarantees of success in advance.
Pre-democratic incumbent elites, precisely because they were incumbents, commanded other options that seemed both easier to execute and seemingly more likely to succeed than democratic competition:.
The worst thing that can happen to a failing government is that people stop voting for that party, but the options are very limited, and another vote is only effective in the extremely unlikely event that it changes the outcome of an election. Democracy is simply a bad way to control, steer or limit political power.
No wonder democratic states are constantly growing in power. If someone robs someone else on the street we consider that highly immoral. But 'majority' does not equate to 'justice' or 'morality'. Morality is determined by principles of right and wrong, not numbers. Are voters the useful idiots of a democracy? Not only is voting wasted energy but it also gives the false impression that those in power are legitimate.
In a big election your chances of dying in a traffic accident on the way to the polling station are higher than your vote having any effect on the election results. And even if your vote happens to make a difference in one representative more or less, it probably has no effect on policy anyway. For politicians can break election promises with impunity.
Voting is about as effective as cheering for your favorite team during a Super Bowl match. If a citizen can only vote for one party, as in North Korea, we call it a dictatorship. But if one can effectively choose out of two parties, such as in the U. A single vote already carries little weight, but a vote for a small party makes it weigh even less. Therefore, people often vote strategically. They do not choose their preferred party but the least bad big party, one which at least has a real chance of coming to power.
This usually leads to two duopoly or three triopoly large parties that form a kind of oligarchy. For political newcomers it has proven to be very difficult to break through that barrier, irrespective of any election threshold. As spokesperson of Free Private Cities Ltd. Available in these languages. To do it in print is heroic. Short-termism is built in to democracy Elected politicians are in power for only a few years. Democracy is not politically neutral One would think that democracy can go either way, left, right, liberal, socialist or conservative.
Democracy is totalitarian The problem with democracy is that there is no fundamental limit on the kinds of questions about which the majority, or the state may decide. Democracy is a giant redistribution machine In a democracy everyone can try to live at other people's expense. Democracy leads to moral decline The democratic redistribution machine, and particularly the welfare state, punishes successful people through higher taxes and gives the money to people who are in trouble.
Author : M. Author : Anonym Publisher: N. The republic is a nominal democracy and was pursuing liberal reforms after gaining independence, however, since his election in , its current president Alyaksandar Lukashenka, was repeatedly able to expand his almost autocratic powers. The fact that most other countries in Eastern Europe have democratized more or less like textbook examples makes Belarus' autocracy a true exception.
In this paper, the question will be answered why democratization has so far failed in post-communist Belarus. To answer this question thoroughly, it is indispensable to portrait the pre-transitional history and political climate in communist Belarus section 2.
The research then turns to the question of how and to what extent external actors, especially the U. Eventually, the analysis of external and internal factors will answer the central question of why democracy failed in Belarus section 5.
It will be determined whether international efforts have been made effectively and correctly, and also, which domestic factors averted a move towards democracy.
The results found in this research indicate that international actors failed to recognize Belarus' exceptionalism among democratizing Eastern European countries and therefore virtually missed the crucial period in which democratization was still a political possibility for Belarus. Most importantly, however, internal factors were most significant in the authoritarian development of Belarus.
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