Democratic consolidation as legitimacy - Razón y Palabra

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DEMOCRACIA SUSTENTABLE

DEMOCRATIC CONSOLIDATION AS LEGITIMACY

 

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Por Miguel Angel Lara Otaola

 

 

Abstract
Democratic consolidation is normally understood as the level beyond which democracy is sustainable and its ‘complex system of institutions, rules, and patterned incentives and disincentives becomes, in a phrase, the only game in town’ (Linz and Stepan, 1996:15). For explaining this, however, many scholars only focus either on the characteristics of consolidated democracy or on some of the factors that make democracy successful. The first set of explanations is good for describing how a consolidated democracy works while the second is important for avoiding an authoritarian regression or for improving democracy’s quality. However, both accounts overlook a basic aspect that needs to exist before we can start talking about checks and balances, type of rules, civicness or civil society. This is legitimacy.

Palabras clave
Democracy, consolidation, democratic consolidation, legitimacy, elections, democracia, consolidación democrática, legitimidad, elecciones.

Democratic consolidation is normally understood as the level beyond which democracy is sustainable and its ‘complex system of institutions, rules, and patterned incentives and disincentives becomes, in a phrase, the only game in town’ (Linz and Stepan, 1996:15). For explaining this, however, many scholars only focus either on the characteristics of consolidated democracy or on some of the factors that make democracy successful. The first set of explanations is good for describing how a consolidated democracy works while the second is important for avoiding an authoritarian regression or for improving democracy’s quality. However, both accounts overlook a basic aspect that needs to exist before we can start talking about checks and balances, type of rules, civicness or civil society. This is legitimacy.

Some scholars explain consolidated democracy by describing how it looks like. They do so by outlining some of its main characteristics. In the first place, Dankwart Rustow (Rustow, 1970) sketched a general route that countries follow to achieve democracy. This route consists of four main phases, the last of which ‘the habituation phase’ (Rustow, 1970, 358) corresponds to democratic consolidation. In this phase three sorts of processes are at work: politicians and citizens confirm their democratic practices and beliefs, place their faith in the new rules and apply them to new issues, and people become firmly fitted into the new structure by the forging of effective links to party organization (Rustow, 1970:360). On the other hand, Linz and Stepan argue that democracy is consolidated when it becomes the ‘only game in town’ in 3 different dimensions: behavioural, attitudinal and constitutional.  (Linz and Stepan, 1996). With ‘consolidation, democracy becomes routinized and deeply internalized in social, institutional, and even psychological life, as well as in political calculations for achieving success’ (Linz and Stepan, 1996: 16). Therefore, under these two descriptive approaches, democratic consolidation is a stage in which actors behave democratically and play by the rules.

A second group of scholars explain consolidated democracy by the additional factors or conditions that allow democratic stabilization and deepening. Once a country has reached the point of having free, fair and regular elections either democracy has to be protected in order to avoid its slide back (suddenly or slowly – O’Donnell, 1992: 19) to authoritarianism or it has to be advanced in order to improve its quality and make it more sustainable (Schedler, 1996). As a result, many other additional factors have come into play for explaining democratic consolidation. Examples of these additional factors are having an organized free and lively civil society (Linz and Stepan, 1996:7), a strong civic culture (Almond, 1989), an institutionalized political system (Schneider and Schmitter, 2004), having specific social and economic conditions (Lipset, 1960), an autonomous political society with institutions -political parties, elections and legislature- that are positively appreciated, (Linz and Stepan, 1996:8) and subordinating the military to the democratic government (Valenzuela, 1992:87), among others. Hence, under this second perspective, democratic consolidation has become an over-encompassing concept that ranges from civicness to the alleviation of poverty.

Both approaches are important for the wider context of democratic consolidation but miss consolidation’s main feature: legitimacy . Actually, to the ‘original mission of rendering democracy ‘the only game in town’, countless other tasks have been added’ (Schedler, 1998:91). The first set of explanations is important for describing how a consolidated democracy works and looks like, while the second is crucial for either avoiding a democratic breakdown and for improving democracy’s quality. However, they depart from the essential point of consolidation which is democracy as ‘the only game in town’ (Linz and Stepan, 1996:15). As a result, it is important to distinguish between those factors that make democracy thrive and work after its consolidation from that one that makes it consolidate and become the only game in town in the first place. For democracy to be the only game in town, first and foremost, it has to be legitimate. Then, it is only after being legitimate that we can start to characterize it and adding other factors for securing and deepening it. In other words, legitimacy is a necessary condition for reaching consolidation, while other factors are necessary for maintaining it.

Legitimacy –or in short, validity, justifiability and acceptance and evidence of consent- is a necessary condition for reaching democratic consolidation, while other factors are useful for describing or maintaining it. Therefore, consolidated democracy ultimately depends on legitimacy and not on other variables such as the ‘following of rules and procedures’ (Linz and Stepan, 1996: 6). Consequently, in this view, playing by the rules, i.e. the following of rules, institutions and procedures comes after consolidation, not before. As a result, a move towards consolidation can take place not only by playing by the rules, but even by breaking them. This, in turn, depends on these rules, and on the system’s general degree of legitimacy. This legitimacy is determined by both the performance of the regime (its legality validity and the justifiability of the system) and by the expression of consent to it by actions (Beetham, 1991:120). When a regime is illegitimate according to these standards, sometimes it is necessary to break the rules of the game for advancing democracy. On the other hand, in more legitimate regimes, the respect of these rules is evidence of democratic consolidation. Elections play an important role here since they can open the door for either legitimizing or rejecting a regime. This, however, will be analysed in more detail in my following articles. For now, it is important to say that breaking the rules can actually contribute to democratic consolidation.

 

 


Legitimacy consists in the acceptance of the authority of systems, regimes and institutions and as such, it can determine changes in political life.

 

 

 

Miguel Angel Lara Otaola

Especialista en democracia, gobernabilidad, Reforma del Estado, medios de comunicación y temas electorales. Maestro en Política Comparada por la London School of Economics, donde fue Presidente de la Sociedad de Alumnos Mexicanos y en Políticas Públicas por el Tecnológico de Monterrey. Licenciado en Relaciones Internacionales por la misma institución. Ha colaborado en el Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo, el Instituto Federal Electoral y el Overseas Development Institute, en Reino Unido. Actualmente, colabora en la Asociación Mexicana de Impartidores de Justicia como coordinador del programa televisivo 'AMIJ Punto de Encuentro'.  


Correo: motaola@hotmail.com


ANTERIORES

(2011)

EFFECTIVE PARTICIPATION IN LATIN AMERICA: FROM EXTRALEGAL TO LEGAL MOBILIZATION. THE CHALLENGES AHEAD

THE IMPOSITION OF DEMOCRACY: JAPAN AFTER WWII

DRUGS WITHOUT BORDERS: REGIONal integration and ways forward for guatemala and mexico

 

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