Contemporary Democratic Transitions

Catalog description

This course introduces students to the forces that can precipitate the development of a democratic political system. The focus is on how regime transitions can be shaped by the strategic choices of principal political agents. Hence, rather than lingering on modernization or international dependency theories, the objective is to highlight the different mechanisms by which political actors from various social classes in a dictatorship can establish or demand a more democratic political system. We pay particular attention to the lower class (poor, working class) and the upper class (bourgeoisie, middle class, regime insiders). Emphasis is placed on Africa, with comparative material and systematic evidence drawn from nations in Southern Europe and Latin America.