Original scientific paper
THEORIES OF TRANSFORMATION: DEMOCRATIC CONSOLIDATION OF POST-AUTHORITARIAN SOCIETIES
Wolfgang Merkel
; Institut za politički znanost, Sveučilište "Karl Ruprecht" u Heidelbergu, Heidelberg, Njemačka
Abstract
Democratic consolidation of post-authoritarian and post-totalitarian societies is looked into at the levels of (1) basic political institutions; (2) chief proponents of representative democracy (political parties and interest associations); (3) behaviour of powerful informal political actors (army, church, entrepreneurs, etc); and (4) civic culture. Democracy is stable only after it has been consolidated on all four levels. This “maximalist concept” of democratic consolidation excludes the explanation of a breakdown of democratic systems by voluntaristic and nonconceptualized descriptions of “deconsolidation”.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
31973
URI
Publication date:
9.9.1999.
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