Johan A. Elkink

The international diffusion of democracy

The idea that democracy is contagious, that democracy diffuses across the world map, is now well established among policy makers and political scientists alike. The few theoretical explanations of this phenomenon focus exclusively on political elites. This article presents a theoretical model and accompanying computer simulation that explains the diffusion of democracy based on the dynamics of public opinion and mass revolutions. On the basis of the literature on preference falsification, cascading revolutions, and the social judgment theory, an agent-based simulation is developed and analyzed. The results demonstrate that the diffusion of attitudes, in combination with a cascading model of revolutions, is indeed a possible theoretical explanation of the spatial clustering of democracy.

How generational replacement undermined the electoral resilience of Fianna Fáil

Five years have passed since Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation and Ben Ali’s departure, and ambivalence prevails in the representations and perceptions of Tunisia. While the international community celebrates Tunisia as the Arab world’s sole example of a successful transition towards democracy, Tunisian citizens are disillusioned with the unfinished democratisation process, sapped by terrorism, unemployment and unrelenting corruption. Putting aside the oversimplistic categories of success or failure, this paper offers a review of the social and political changes that have been achieved since 2011. It contextualises historical developments that have thrown Tunisia into turmoil since the “Arab Spring”, in order to give a more accurate picture of specifically the Tunisian trajectory.

Understanding the 2015 marriage referendum in Ireland: context, campaign, and conservative Ireland

ABSTRACT On 22 May 2015 the marriage referendum proposal was passed by a large majority of Irish voters and the definition of marriage in the constitution was broadened to introduce marriage equality. This referendum is remarkable for a number of reasons: (1) it is uniquely based on an experiment in deliberative democracy; (2) the referendum campaign was unusually vigorous and active; and (3) the voting patterns at the referendum point to a significant value shift along the deep seated liberal conservative political cleavage of Irish politics. This article provides an overview of the background to the referendum initiative, the campaign prior to the referendum, and the key factors that drove voter turnout and preference. Based on a post-referendum survey, we find that while support for the government of the day, political knowledge, and social attitudes have the same effects as commonly found in other referendums, the variation among social classes was less prevalent than usual and door-to-door canvassing by the two sides of the campaign impacted through turnout rather than vote preference. The voting behaviour of the different age groups suggests strong generational effects.

Dynamics of regime personalization and patron–client networks in Russia, 1999–2014

Many comparative scholars classify personalist regimes as a distinct category of nondemocratic rule. To measure the process of regime personalization, and to distinguish such a process from overall authoritarian reversal, is difficult in comparative context. Using the Russian political regime in 1999–2014 as a case study, we examine the dynamics of regime personalization over time. Relying on original data on patron–client networks and expert surveys assessing the policy influence of the key members of the ruling coalition, we argue that having more clients, or clients who are more powerful, increases the power of patrons – and that where the patron is the ruler, the resulting measure is an indication of the level of personalization of the regime. We trace regime personalization from the changes in political influence of the presidents associates in his patron–client network versus that of other elite patron–client networks. We find that as early as 2004, the Russian regime can be regarded as personalist, and is strongly so from 2006 onward.

Office or Officeholder? Regime Deinstitutionalization and Sources of Individual Political Influence

How to separate the office from the officeholder is one of the most difficult questions in the empirical study of institutions and leadership. We argue that provided there is an indicator for the overall individual influence among members of the political elite and there is sufficient variability among individuals taking the same office, being promoted and demoted into different offices over time, we can separate latent individual and institutional components of influence at an aggregate, regime level. Our latent variable model thus provides a new tool to measure the degree of regime deinstitutionalization. Using expert surveys that assess the ranking of the top political actors in Russia from 1994 to 2011 and restricting personal effects to those that are constant over time, we find that on average office dominates individual by the order of two. We discuss regime deinstitutionalization in comparative perspective, demonstrate the generalizability by analyzing Ukraine, and account for patronage networks.

Measuring bank contagion in Europe using binary spatial regression models

The recent European sovereign debt crisis clearly illustrates the importance of measuring the contagion effects of bank failures. Indeed, to better understand and monitor contagion risk, the European Central Bank has assumed the supervision of the largest banks in each of the member states. We propose a measure of contagion risk based on the spatial autocorrelation parameter of a binary spatial autoregressive model. Using different specifications of the interbank connectivity matrix, we estimate the contagion parameter for banks within the Eurozone, between 1996 and 2012. We provide evidence of high levels of systemic risk due to contagion during the European sovereign debt crisis.

Quality of government and regional competition: A spatial analysis of subnational regions in the European Union

Building on previous work on competition networks and governmental performance among British local governments, this article investigates the diffusion of government quality across subnational regions of Europe through strategic interaction with neighbouring regions or competitor regions more generally. The article demonstrates the presence of spatial interdependence using standard spatial regression models and controlling for common explanations of quality of government. In particular for regions with high levels of autonomy from the national government, there is clear adjustment in government quality to be seen in response to disparities with competitor regions. The article further investigates the intensity of this geographical effect separately in the north and south of Europe in order to estimate the potential for virtuous or vicious cycles of good governance in the two regions, respectively. It is found that while regions in the north develop relatively independently of each other but respond to competitive pressure across Europe, in the south regions demonstrate a higher level of local interdependence, increasing the possibility of virtuous cycles – but also of vicious ones.