Carley Lintner

Evolution of Government










When looking at Democratization or De-Democratization Tilly starts with the three
elements that form a nation. First here is the state; that is in charge of a certain territory, or
region. Second there is everyone who lives permanently and legally in this area that we will call
citizens, so to identify who is part of that state. Lastly, and most importantly there is the regime
which the state holds. This is seen as;a certain class of relations between the states and citizens,
and democratization or de-democratization will consist of changes in those sort of relations
Regime is the most important aspect of the fluctuation of democracy because change in, location
or description of citizen does less to democracy then does the regime the state holds. By looking
at certain regimes, we see how they can affect or be affected democratization or de-
democratization. The strength of these regimes, will not only determine the pace, but also the
capacity with which they can democratize, or de-democratize.
Regime is important because at times it can help the process of democratization, but can
even cause de-democratization for the same reasons. If the regime is authoritarian, shifting the
power from the leader to the masses (democratization) is a threat to those leaders. Many times
countries like the United States will attempt to bring democracy to other nations by making
attractive deals with national leaders or, for that matter, by coercing leaders to adopt democratic
institutions. An example of this done successfully was after World War II when the western
Allies went into Japan and Germany, in an attempt to bring democracy where authoritarian
regimes existed, but; there was extensive bargaining with citizens to create a new democratic
regime It is ironic in the case of Germany, Italy and Spain and it is important to remember that
before World War I, these countries was more democratic. The loss of the war gave way to
terrible financial crisis. This caused the people to look for any way out of its financial
depression. It causes them to de-democratize. The Democratic regime, which was in place, was
obviously weak so along came de-democratize in an attempt to regain the power these countries
once had. This was the famous rise in Authoritarian leaders, which impacted the 20
th
century
greatly. These countries show that democracies do not always stay democracies because they are
for the common good of the people. In these instances they de-democratized.
This in turn impacts another part of regime that can impact its ability to democratize or
de-democratize. How high is the existing regimes capacity to maintain itself? Low capacity
democratizing regimes have commonly succumbed to conquests, revolutions, or military
takeovers that have, in turn, produced higher capacity governments. We again saw this after
World War I when the weakness of these regimes was taken over by some other form of
government. On the other hand if it has a high capacity then it will be harder to change. America
is a world power and instead of becoming more or less democratic it is now pushing its form of
democracy on other weaker regimes. Conversely, if a semi-democratic leader has great authority
over their country then, eventually this leader will find more ways to stay in power. This will not
only constitute in de-democratization but in un-democratization, and these rulers will find ways
to become dictators. This has been seen with Stalin in the former Soviet Union, and Hitler in
Germany. They also started to push their regime in other countries just in the opposite direction
that the USA was.
We have seen that the regimes change constantly. As the example of Germany shows us;
within about thirty years it went from democracy, to authoritarian to dictatorship, and back to a
democracy. Germany was able to go from democracy to authoritarian rule, due to the regimes
weak capacity to protect itself. It therefore de-democratized. The western allies were able to
bring democracy back to Germany after the war. This shows how stronger regimes not only can
stay where they are, but tend to not democratize or de-democratize. They often have the power to
push their regime onto others. This has been seen with America trying to bring democracy to
the whole world. It has not been done because not all of these regimes were weak enough to be
forced to change, and some strong enough to go in the opposite direction, de-democratize, and
stay that way.










Bibliography

Tilly, Charles. "Inequality, Democratization, and De-Democratization." Sociological Theory 21
(2003): 37-43. 17 Sep. 2008 <http://www.jstor.org
Tilly, Charles. Why?. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008.