In response to the movement in the last two decades away from
authoritarianism and state-run economies toward democracy and
free-markets, political scientists have constructed theories and models to
explain the dynamics behind this global transformation. In a departure
from choice-based approaches, Haggard and Kaufman focus on the constraints
shaping the actors' political preferences and the conditions under which
these preferences change. Unlike the earlier approaches that have
emphasized either the political or economic conditions, they have brought
the debate over regime change full circle by incorporating both of these
variables. In the first part of their study, the authors point out how
economic conditions contribute to the manner in which autocratic regimes
depart and how this departure determines the incoming leadership's ability
to effectively lead and manage the economy. Later, the authors discuss
how the authoritarian departure under crisis or non-crisis economic
circumstances continues to affect nascent democratic institutions.
Lastly, they explore the conditions under which market-oriented reform and
democracy can be reconciled and consolidated.
In regard to our own country studies, this work by Haggard and
Kaufman enables us to break down the process of democratic transition into
economic and political dimensions and analyze the interdependency of both
at the same time. Using the author's model for our country studies
allows us to distinguish between three phases of democratic transition
(i.e. authoritarian withdrawal, early democracy, and consolidation of
democracy and economic reform) and alerts us to the differing legacies of
so-called crisis and non-crisis power transferals. They argue that
authoritarian regimes are most vulnerable to collapse when poor economic
performance undermines their ability to purchase social compliance and
when elite fragmentation weakens their capacity to manage economic and
political crises. By contrast, cohesive elites can better prevent
economic crises and withstand political opposition. Even during non-crisis
situations when they come under pressure to democratize, as in the case of
Turkey, they are in a better position to impose a political settlement
that protects their future access to power and limit the options of their
successors. Furthermore, in what they refer to as the final consolidation
phase, the authors make a substantial contribution by emphasizing the
importance of institutional settings, namely the organization of executive
authority and the structure of the party system, in determining the
ultimate success of economic reform and political transformation.
Overall, in analyzing and comparing the current economic
performances of our case studies, their emphases on the legacy of economic
structures and elite cohesion prior and after the transition provide us
with an elaborate explanation for variations in economic performance and
prospects for political consolidation in these new democracies. However,
their attempt to differentiate themselves from the 'choice-based' approach
by emphasizing the structural constraints on elite preferences work only
as far as the transition is concerned. After the initiation of economic
and political reforms the consolidation of democracy requires more than
the legacy of structural configurations; it requires the strategic choices
of the elites in prioritizing certain institutions over the others to
overcome the contradictory logic of efficient market reforms and an open
society. Although they emphasize this strategic and institutional shift in
the consolidation phase, they do not acknowledge the contribution of the
'choice-based approaches in emphasizing the contingency in elite
preferences. Furthermore, they do not provide broader conclusions about
the relative efficacy of certain institutions over the others except for
the destructive consequences of polarized and fragmented party
systems.Their contention that there is a variety of arrangements to
reconcile economic reform and democratic consolidation does not provide
us with the necessary tools to compare our cases in terms of presidential
vs. parliamentary structures, two vs. multiparty systems, etc. Hence
the discussion of the link between economic reform under a new democracy
and the consolidation of that democracy does not outline the alternative
ways in which economic reform could be undertaken without risk to the
reforming regime.
One other major shortcoming of this study for our purposes is its
case selection. The exclusion of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet
republics not only leads them to underestimate the role of international
incentives and constraints as critical determinants of policy outcomes but
also limits the general plausibility of their explanatory framework. In
analyzing our case studies, we have to acknowledge the significance of
international objective and ideological setting within which policy
choices are framed. Thus both market-oriented economic reform and
democratization have unfolded on a global scale and the political economy
of democratic transitions cannot be understood fully without taking this
into a more systematic consideration.
Finally, although the authors address both the influence of the
economy on politics and the influence of political institutions on the
economy, their conception of the meaning of political economy is
relatively narrow. They are primarily concerned with the determinants of
policy choice in the areas of stabilization and balance of payments
adjustment. The focus on efficient management of economy exclude questions
about the class interests and distributional issues for the subject of
political economy in general and for democratic consolidation in
particular. In analyzing the prospects of economic reform and democratic
consolidation in our case studies, we also need to take into consideration
these broader issues of development.