Suchergebnisse

A review essay on a book by Tatu Vanhanen, Democratization: A Comparative Analysis of 170 Countries (London: Routledge, 2003). References.

Despite renewed opposition from prodemocracy movements, African democracy is in a shambles. Government leaders have simply appropriated the colonial state apparatus to serve their own interests, & the people are still oppressed by the same structures they tried to overthrow in the 1960s. Although some liberalization has occurred -- eg, in Benin, Ghana, & Zambia -- government responses to public agitation have run the spectrum from cooptation to intimidation to divisionary tactics. Changes have been primarily superficial, & deeper problems remain: the repressive, undemocratic state retains its agenda; the same elite manpulates politics; the African economy is a disaster; civil society is ineffective & fragmented; primordialism has increased; elections have been emphasized at the expense of developing democratic institutions; & foreign nations continue to destabilize democracies. Still, democracy can prevail if civil society is strengthened & if prodemocracy movements & new political parties change their strategies. 4 References. E. Munson

In light of Jurgen Habermas's theory of communicative action (see IRPS No. 41/88c09222 & 88c09223), an analysis is offered of two opposing phenomena now occurring: fascist, despotic destruction vs radical-/eco-democratic extension of modern democracies. These phenomena, it is suggested, are both realizations of democracy's normative content; discursive solutions for social conflicts should replace the polemic of class struggle. Distinctions between formal & actual democracies are identified, & the coevolution of modern structural potentialities' variants in light of the fall of Stalinism & fascism is reviewed. Specifically modern forms of competition & the coevolution of modern structures were dysfunctional under accepted Marxist-Leninist ideologies. It is proposed that a cultural form of competition take the evolutionary lead, thus controlling the economic forms of competition through radical democratization. 32 References. J. Sadler