Laurence Whitehead

Bowling in the bronx: The uncivil interstices between civil and political society

After contrasting the inclusive, universal character of democratic notions of political citizenship (within the relevant jurisdiction) with the exclusivity that necessarily marks civil society the essay argues that the interstices between these two forms will favour the production of multiple variants of ‘incivility’. The category of ‘uncivil citizens’ is defined as those who enjoy political rights but are not constrained by the norms of civil society: anti‐social individuals and groups whose recognizable shorthand can be found in the term ‘mafia’. The essay then focuses on whether the greatest threat to civil society may come neither from intrusive statism nor from unthinking tradition, but from the ‘insecurity, rootlessness, arbitrariness, and perhaps even the social cannibalism’ that have come to be associated with many post‐transition liberalized societies.

Political explanations of macroeconomic management: A survey

Abstract This paper surveys eight overlapping types of political explanation for patterns of macroeconomic management in the Third World: (1) historical traditions; (2) socio-structural determinants; (3) the self-interest of politically powerful sectors; (4) entrenched characteristics of the political system; (5) formal properties of the political institutions; (6) the influence of economic ideologies; (7) vicious/virtuous circles; and (8) a residual category of conjunctural factors. It then considers the scope and limitations of such explanations, and reassesses the notion of “political constraints” on economic optimization.

The Alternatives to ‘Liberal Democracy’: A Latin American Perspective:

Although some conventional liberal democratic regimes are likely to become consolidated in Latin America, the dominant pattern is better understood as ‘democracy by default’, and in a few cases little more than ‘facade democracy’ is to be expected. This paper reviews the major factors accounting for the fragility, instability and policy ineffectiveness of many of these new regimes. Although current fiscal crises lend some plausibility to the ‘neo-liberal’ analyses of democratization, the paper argues that in the longer run consolidated democracies will tend to develop a range of ‘social democratic’, participatory and interventionist features that are at variance with the neo-liberal model. Latin American nation-states are relatively well integrated and contain a stock of human and social resources that should favour constitutional outcomes, so that although many of these new democracies will remain provisional and incomplete for the time being, they possess the potential for subsequent extension and entrenchment.

European Democracy Promotion in North Africa: Limits and Prospects

Democratization, Vol.7, No.1 (Spring 2000), pp.1–00 PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON Less than a decade after the European Union started to extend its democracy promotion efforts to its southern neighbours, there are few if any signs of many tangible results. Without ostentatiously repudiating the European prodemocracy agenda, North African governments have contrived either to nullify its impact or to reorient it towards projects compatible with their own objectives. Of course, the fruits were never expected to appear in the short term, even by the most optimistic of democracy promoters. None the less, it is reasonable to enquire whether by this time the EU effort is starting to fuel processes likely to enhance the prospects of democracy in the long term. The contributions published in this collection raise serious doubts as to whether this really is the case. Given these doubts, this concluding assessment attempts to reassess the strategy upon which EU democracy promotion policies in North Africa have been based. Such a discouraging first term report has not led the contributors to these pages to conclude on a note of fatalism. Nobody has argued that the EU should abandon this line of policy or replace it with a more modest enterprise, such as focusing merely upon ‘good governance’. The emergent consensus informing this collection has revolved around a number of commonly held propositions:

Losing ‘the Force’? The ‘Dark Side’ of democratization after Iraq

After 1945, with the defeat of Nazism, until the end of the 1990s, with the rise of the US as the only superpower and the ‘triumph of liberalism’, it seemed that the West could say, like the Jedis in Star Wars, that ‘the Force was with them’. Indeed, to the extent that people around the world believed this, the established democracies of the West were also entitled to say ‘may the force be with you’, and promote the kinds of measures that might allow this to be so. The transitions of Spain, Poland, and South Africa that I look at here, and which occurred as theories of democratization and democracy promotion gathered pace and force, seemed to confirm this. But there was always a ‘Dark Side’ at the heart of the West. The Wests support for dictatorships during the Cold War tarnished its reputation; the coercive promotion of democracy in contemporary Iraq and the securitizing perspective adopted after the attacks of 11 September 2001 has almost blackened it beyond repair, to the extent that the West may be losing ‘the Force’. This has profound implications for our theorizing about democracy. This article focuses on the pivotal case of Iraq – the ‘Dark Side’ of Western so-called ‘democracy promotion’, and how it may change the position of the West as the possessor of ‘the Force’, and with it, democratization theory.

On "reform of the state" and "regulation of the market"

Abstract This concluding paper reviews possible interrelationships between the economic and political dimensions of contemporary liberalizations in Latin America and Southern and Eastern-Central Europe. After noting the absence of certain negative features (impediments to a liberal economic and political order) the paper proposes a more positive justification, based on the examination of four possible interrelated linking mechanisms. Responses to chronic fiscal crisis, the stabilization of popular expectations, the strengthening of “transparent” and accountable institutions, and external forms of reinforcement can all, in principle, contribute to the coordinated reinforcement of a more democratized state and a more liberalized market system (without this implying a single uniform end-result applicable to all situations). This special issue has focused on some theoretical questions. Whether these possible linkages operate in practice requires empirical verification.

Mexico from bust to boom: A political evaluation of the 1976-1979 stabilization programme

Abstract This paper evaluates Mexicos recent experience of economic stabilization policies (under the the 3-yr Extended Fund Facility arranged with the IMF in September 1976) from a comparative politics standpoint. By comparison with various South American experiences of inflation and stabilization that were discussed in the same Wilson Centre workshop, Mexicos short-term performance must be rated quite favourably. This was not a case in which Fund orthodoxy prevailed at every point, nor was the Fund analysis accepted without qualification by Mexicos policy-markers. At the end of the period, economic disequilibria, as measured by IMF criteria, remained considerably larger than the 3-yr plan had envisaged, but ‘confidence’ had been restored and rapid growth was in prospect. The interpretation offered in the paper is that Mexicos cyclical pattern of presidential politics largely determined the effective contents of the stabilization package, and that the resilience of the Mexican system of political management goes far to explain why the economic outcome was more favourable than in the South American cases. An accident of geological endowment (the nations huge oil resources) certainly accentuated the process of recovery from ‘bust’ to ‘boom’, but this factor did not operate in isolation, and should not be considered an adequate explanation on its own. The impact of a geological endowment upon economic conditions depends upon political mediation. However, although this paper seeks to highlight the contribution of Mexican political management to the recent short-term economic improvement, it concludes with some qualifications. The final section considers some constraints on the scope and efficacy of Mexican ‘reformism’, particularly in relation to longer-term and more structural problems.

Review and Conclusions

A central preoccupation for any student of the adjustment crisis in Latin America must surely be the prospect for the next few years. In this chapter we move towards an assessment of such prospects in the final section, attempting to integrate what we know of the global scenario with the insights the studies here have offered on the options and constraints in individual situations. With this aim in view we first review the country studies, seeking particularly to define the insights they give as to the consequences of different policy choices faced with the need to adjust, and the interplay between such policy choices and longer-run options and needs. The country experiences with adjustment lead us next to review certain common themes (the role of the IMF, the fiscal deficit and capital flight). Since where the burden of the crisis falls is crucial to understanding the evolution of options, necessities and policy choices, we then discuss distributional issues. The final section comprises our tentative appraisal of the prospects for the late 1980s.

The Challenge of Closely Fought Elections

A surprisingly large number of recent democratic elections have been closely fought. Many of these tight races attracted intense voter involvement and involved deeply consequential choices for their respective societies. The defense of democracy and the promotion of democratic values require constant vigilance; the persistent renewal of political participation on the part of the citizenry is a continuing, open-ended process. To keep the show on the road requires multiple and overlapping sources of reinforcement—legal and societal, domestic and external, local and national. But no sources of enforcement can substitute for a collective sense of tolerance, openness, and fair play.

Introduction: Some insights from Western social theory

Abstract This introductory paper surveys a variety of Western analyses of the emergence of a liberal social order, ranging from the Scottish enlightenment, through responses to the French Revolution, and discussions of American exceptionalism, to various Central European reactions to the traumas of the interwar period, to “dependency” theory and Christian Democracy. It identifies a number of central issues that are reappearing, in somewhat modified form, in the analysis of contemporary economic liberalization and political democratization issues in the South and East. Contrary to some recent triumphalism, most Western social theory has been deeply preoccupied with the fragility and reversibility of economic cum political liberalization processes.