M. Steven Fish

Islam and Authoritarianism

Are predominantly Muslim societies distinctly disadvantaged in democratization? If so, why? The article presents a straightforward cross-national examination of the link between Islam and political regime. The evidence strongly suggests that Muslim countries are in fact democratic underachievers. The nature of the causal connection between Islam and political regime is investigated. Many conventional assumptions about Islam and politics do not withstand scrutiny. But one factor does help explain the dearth of democracy in the Muslim world: the treatment of women and girls. The rudiments of a provisional theory linking the treatment of females and regime type are offered and the implications of the findings for democracy, both in Muslim societies and elsewhere, are discussed.

Democracy from scratch : opposition and regime in the new Russian Revolution

AcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsIWestern Scholarship and the New Russian Revolution3IIThe Transformation of Politics: A Historical Overview30IIIInvestigating the Phenomenon: A Framework for Analysis52IVBuilding Independent Political Society80VThe Struggle in the Provinces: A Tale of Four Cities137VIDemocracy from Scratch200Epilogue231Notes237Bibliography273Index289

Postcommunist Subversion: Social Science and Democratization in East Europe and Eurasia

At first glance, the postcommunist world appears to offer succor to contemporary social scientists. All of our theories of democracy and democratization seem to work. In comparing divergence in trajectories of democratization, the poor ostensibly trail the rich; Muslims seem to lag behind Orthodox Christians, and Orthodox Christians behind Catholics and Protestants; the west seems to prevail over the east. Ethnically divided countries appear to encounter more arduous obstacles to an open society than do more homogeneous ones. Self-interested politicians pursue the reelection imperative with the same alacrity and single-minded intensity that they do in the west and everywhere else. Political institutions seem to reflect and promote the interests of their makers. Such comforting notions, however, rest on shaky empirical foundations. Some of the predicted patterns may indeed be detected. But the relationships are more tenuous than any strong version of the theories rooted in the major paradigms suggest. Generalizations such as those sketched above are usually based on anecdotal comparisons of a small number of cases, often selected to make a specific theoretical point, or on

The Art of Being Indispensable Noncharismatic Personalism in Contemporary Political Parties

Max Webers theory of leadership authority has deeply influenced theories of political parties, but Webers concept of charisma is often used indiscriminately to refer to all kinds of personalist leadership. What is more, Webers tripartite typology of traditional, charismatic and rational-legal authority neglects a form of leadership often found in major contemporary political parties. This article formulates a differentiated typology and conceptualization of personalism, and theorizes an important but heretofore poorly understood form of political organization: the non-charismatic personalist political party. The leaders of such parties embody great personal authority within their organizations and often serve as symbols around which their parties can rally. But they are anything but prophets. Their authority arises not from an ability to inspire or transform their followers but rather from the skill to mediate conflicts within the party.

Democratization and Economic Liberalization in the Postcommunist World

How does economic liberalization affect political regime? Economic liberalization is widely regarded as inimical to democratization. The “Washington Consensus,” which generally endorses “shock therapy” and envisions a basic compatibility between economic liberalization and democratization, is widely disdained in social science. Many scholars hold that neoliberal economics depresses popular living standards and exacerbates socioeconomic inequalities, thereby compromising democratization. Focusing on the postcommunist region, this article tests this hypothesis. It examines the data that have been used to assess the relationship between economic liberalization and political democratization and presents analyses using more appropriate and differentiated techniques. The authors find that economic liberalization advances rather than undermines democratization. Using Engle-Granger analysis, they find that although economic liberalization has no discernible impact on democratization in the short term, democratization adjusts in the direction of a long-term equilibrium to which economic liberalization contributes substantially.

The Inner Asian anomaly: Mongolia's democratization in comparative perspective

Abstract Following the demise of Soviet-type regimes most countries of postcommunist Inner Asia either experienced initial political openings followed by reversion to authoritarianism or moved directly from one type of harsh authoritarianism to another. Mongolia is exceptional. The extent of political opening there during the 1990s far exceeded anything seen in any neighboring country and the gains of the early post-Soviet period were maintained instead of reversed. This paper investigates the causes of Mongolias relative success and argues that the absence of several factors that are often regarded as propitious for democratization has actually facilitated Mongolias democratization. The experience of postcommunist Inner Asia casts doubt on some arguments current in thinking on regime change.

Islam and Large-Scale Political Violence: Is There a Connection?:

Are Muslims especially prone to large-scale political violence? From Montesquieu to Samuel Huntington, prominent modern analysts of politics have regarded Muslims as unusually inclined to strife. Many other observers have portrayed Islam as a peace-loving faith and Muslims as largely pacific.Yet scholars still lack much hard evidence on whether a relationship between Islam and political violence really exists. Precious few studies adduce empirical evidence on whether Islamic societies are actually more or less violent. This article assesses whether Muslims are more prone to large-scale political violence than non-Muslims. The authors focus neither on terrorism nor on interstate war. Instead, they investigate large-scale intrastate violence. The article makes three contributions. First, it offers useful data on Islam and political strife. Second, it investigates whether Muslims are especially violence prone. Relying on cross-national analysis, the authors find no evidence of a correlation between the proportion of a country’s population that is made up of Muslims and deaths in episodes of large-scale political violence in the postwar period. Third, the authors investigate whether Islamism (the ideology), as opposed to Muslims (the people), is responsible for an inordinate share of the world’s large-scale political violence. They find that Islamism is implicated in an appreciable but not disproportionate amount of political violence.

Diversity, Conflict and Democracy: Some Evidence from Eurasia and East Europe

Does diversity endanger democracy? Ethnic composition is often thought to affect democracy by means of its influence on the probability of violent civil conflict. According to such thinking, more diverse societies are more prone to conflict, which in turn makes them less hospitable to democracy. How sound is this idea? This article tests it, performing quantitative analysis on data from the post-communist region. The study finds that conflict is negatively associated with democracy, but finds no empirical evidence that social fractionalization influences civil conflict or democratization. In fact, a concluding case study on Bulgaria suggests that diversity may actually ‘impose’ certain opportunities for – not just obstacles to – the emergence of practices and institutions that promote open politics.

Putin's Path

Over the past decade, the lands of the former USSR have followed diverse trajectories with respect to democratization. The Baltic states established robust democratic regimes. Georgia and Moldova entered the postcommunist period under conditions of chaos and authoritarianism, but thereafter moved toward more democratic and stable politics. Belarus, Azerbaijan, and Kyrgyzstan experienced substantial openings but subsequently reverted to despotism. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan slid directly from Soviet rule to sultanism, with personalist dictatorships quickly replacing the rule of the communist party. Russia, Ukraine, and Armenia, following antiauthoritarian breakthroughs in the late 1980s and early 1990s, gradually drifted back toward political closure, albeit without the unequivocal consolidation of authoritarian rule witnessed in Belarus and Central Asia. In Russia, by far the region’s dominant country, a political transformation has been under way since Vladimir Putin’s ascension to power at the beginning of 2000. After the paralysis of Boris Yeltsin’s second presidential term, Russian politics has again become dynamic and extraordinarily interesting. Although Putin’s path is usually portrayed in the West either as a continuation of the Yeltsin era’s erosion of democratic advances or as a rush back to hard authoritarianism, its effects may prove to be mixed and complex. Some changes are indubitably reversing previous democratic gains, but others may advance democratization. M. Steven Fish is associate professor of political science at the University of California–Berkeley. He is author of Democracy from Scratch: Opposition and Regime in the New Russian Revolution (1995) and coauthor of Postcommunism and the Theory of Democracy (forthcoming, 2002). In 2000–2001, he was a Fulbright Fellow and visiting professor of political science at the European University at St. Petersburg.

Indonesia: The Benefits of Civic Engagement

Indonesia’s successful democratization poses a puzzle. As a vast, lower-middle income country with scant tradition of open politics, Indonesia did not seem to be a good bet for robust democracy. But Indonesia enjoys an advantage: extraordinary levels of civic engagement. Indonesians participate in organizations at unusually high rates and display an exceptional level of interpersonal sociability. Spirited associational life has enabled Indonesians to constrain elites and sustain self-government by cultivating a sense of efficacy, fostering the cultivation and transfer of civic skills, and creating opportunities for individuals to be recruited into politics. Indonesia demonstrates how civic engagement can abet democratization.