Although the transition of South Europe, South America and Asian countries to democratic regimes in the 1970s and 1980s, the collapse and transition of socialist regimes in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and the democratization revolution in the Middle East and North Africa in 2010, Democracy is still underway. Despite the collapse of many dictatorships around the world, some countries have fallen into disorder rather than a pre-revolutionary period, others revert to dictatorship, and the others are continuing their democratic movements. In spite of the numerous experiences of democratization in history, the conditions and progress for democratization are not the same.
This study aims to identify the conditions and differences for which authoritarian regimes succeed in the transition of the system and which are not, through the comparative case studies.
The transition of a dictatorship proceeds in three ways : to remain, to be democratic or to be confused. The reason is that the variables of the ruling forces and resistance forces depending on their level and degree leads to different processes and outcomes. In other words, the level of the opposition, the degree of division of the elites, and its interaction determine not only whether the dictatorship is changing the system, but also whether it is moving smoothly toward democratization or into chaos.
Therefore, this study examines three hypotheses. H1 : If the level of the opposition is low and the level of division of the ruling forces is weak, the dictatorship remains stable. H2 : If the level of the opposition is high and the level of division of the ruling forces is large, the dictatorship will collapse and advance toward democratization. H3 : If the level of the opposition is high and the level of division of the ruling forces is weak, the dictatorship does not collapse and goes into chaos. The level of the opposition is measured by the resistance subject, the networking and mobilization of the resistance forces, and the armed level of theirs. On the other hand, the degree of division of the elites is measured by the will of the ruler, disaffection or cohesion of the elites, and the mobilization of the physical controls such as military and police.
An authoritarian regime can maintain its survival by blocking the possibility of the resistance or the opposition in the bud through effective “control” of the individual dictatorship that complement the one-ruling party dictatorship. The autocracies also can survive when the level of division of the elites is weak and the capacity to mobilizing the military is full, even if the level of the opposition is high.
Keyword: Dictatorship Regime, Regime Transition, Revolution, Condition of Transition, Dissimilarity of Transition, North Korea, East Germany, Egypt, Syria
카카오톡
페이스북
블로그