Typologizacja czynników przekształceń demokratycznych

Abstrakt

The first wave of researches on democratic transition appeared during the Cold War, which were too ideological and over-optimistic about the victory of capitalism over its ideological adversary – communism. Till the beginning of 1990-s the researchers had a great confidence, that democracy and market economy can be crafted following the certain set of rules. But some setbacks in democratic transitions force to pay more attention to the causes of their initiations and their impact on further development of democratic institutions.

Despite of plenty approaches to definition of the democratic transformation drivers, they can be divided into five groups: social, economic, personal (elitists), international and institutional. The social approach uses such terms as civil political culture, civil values (R. Patnam), social capital, trust and cooperation, which promote the democratic practice in society. But some empirical studies proved that democratic transformation can occur in conditions, when civil values are less common. Early arguments that Islam can not be combined with democratic institutions were contradicted by the recent Arab revolutions (see, for example, L. Diamond). S. Lipset was the first, who pointed out the relations between the level of economic development and stability of democratic institutions. The later researches mentioned the importance of the middle classes, economic disparity, availability of natural resources and so on. The role of the agreement between new and old politicians, especially on the early stages of transformation, is examined in the context of elitist approach. The international factors are presented by foreign countries and international organizations (EU, NATO, World Bank, IMF). The institutionalists are convinced that election system, political parties, parliament, constitution agreements are the key to successful democratization.