Suchergebnisse

Set-theoretic comparative methods (STCM) have some appeal, but these methods as well as claims about these methods are deeply problematic. The most basic problem is that these methods reduce causation to a logical relation and erroneously posit that causal hypotheses can be formalized as a relation of material implication. In addition, advocated of STCM commonly misrepresent their relationship to quantitative and qualitative methods. STCM and standard regression analysis are not incommensurable methods. Moreover, STCM actually clash with process tracing, a method used by qualitative researchers. Thus, qualitative comparativists should not use STCM, and the discussion about social science methods should turn from STCM to other, more promising options.

El presente artículo estudia la transición a una política basada en las masas en América Latina como un modo de comenzar a abordar la falta de teorización sobre los casos no europeos de democratización y democracia anteriores a 1974. El mismo ofrece un mo

Politics in Latin America continued to be about democracy after the democratic transitions in Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s. An old concern – securing the minimal standard of democracy that had served as the goal of democratic transitions – remained relevant. But a new concern – the attainment of more than a minimal democracy – transformed politics about democracy. Actors who supported and opposed neoliberalism – the key axis of ideological conflict – advocated and resisted political changes in the name of different models of democracy. And the conflict overwhichmodel of democracy would prevail shaped Latin America's post-transition trajectories, determininghowdemocracy developed and, in turn,whetherdemocracy endured.

Recent events across the globe make clear the complexities of the politics of "democratization" and the importance of developing nuanced and compelling understandings of these complexities. In Eurasia, "Color Revolutions" have given way to democratic disappointments and "authoritarian regimes." In north Africa, an unanticipated upsurge of democratic movements has felled autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt, but the political outcomes of these "transitions" are very much in doubt. Contemporary political science has developed an elaborate vocabulary for understanding such processes. And this vocabulary owes a great deal to a small group of scholars—Juan Linz, Guillermo O'Donnell, Philippe Schmitter, Alfred Stepan and Adam Przeworksi—who helped to lay the theoretical foundations of our current understanding of politics around the globe.