To the ? The debate on democratic transition and consolidation in the 1980s and 1990s, in the context of the so -called third wave of democracy, opposed optimistic and pessimistic views. The first, inspired by the end of the end of history, maintained that democratization was inexorable and irreversible, driven by the widespread elevation of income and the expansion of markets on a global scale.
The pessimists warned that nothing guaranteed the perpetuation of democracy. Among them, Przeworski, who, however, estimated that the probability of era of 1 by 1.8 million. His skepticism derived from the conception of democratic stability as a self -imposed balance, in which the actors’s dominant strategy is to follow the rules of the democratic game. It is, however, an unstable balance: it remains only when the game’s stakes are not excessively high and the gains under democracy surpass those of an authoritarian alternative. , the dominant reading of the transition as a “pact” between elites was excessively naive.
The question of consolidation resurfaced with vigor in the face of the democratic setback under Trump, the US – of the longest and allegedly consolidated regimes in the world. The belief in the consolidation of American democracy contributes to a large extent to the growing abuses of power by Trump. The question also interests us: are our democratic institutions consolidated?
The evidence points to the income as the main predictor of democratization and, later, of consolidation. However, there are relevant exceptions – specially among countries rich in mineral wealth (gas, oil, diamonds, etc.). In this context, timing is crucial. The virtuous sequence occurs when its discovery succeeds the establishment of democratic institutions; Otherwise, it tends to configure a curse, because the political dispute for such riches has a strong potential destabilizing potential.
Huntington proposed, as a metric for classifying regimes in consolidated, the criterion of two peaceful alternations of power between rival forces. The US registered 22 alternations. Already Brazil would meet this criterion, given the absence of institutional rupture and the failure of the coup in 2022.
Svolik, an optimistic, modeled consolidation as a latent process, in which the likelihood of regime change drops abruptly from 1/3 to 1/200. Thus, the democratic experience itself – controred by income and other factors – emerges as one of the best predictors of consolidation.
However, the same Svolik has shown that while consolidated democracies are immune to military blows, they remain vulnerable to the so -called incumbent Takeover, internal erosion. Although rare – hear to zero after 50 years – such occurrences are ten times more likely in presidential regimes and seven times more frequent in oil exporting countries.
A. is still early for conclusions.
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