Colloquium Series – Practice Job Talk: Ali Kadivar, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Mass Mobilization and the Durability of New Democracies

A generation ago, political scientist Samuel Huntington commented that “democratic regimes that last have seldom, if ever, been instituted by mass popular actors” (1984:212). This paper subjects this observation to empirical investigation using statistical and comparative-historical analyses of new democracies over the past half-century. Contrary to Huntington’s suggestion, I argue that new democracies growing out of mass mobilization are more likely to survive than new democracies that came about without mobilization. Survival analysis of 112 young democracies based on original data show that the longer the mobilization, the more likely the ensuing democracy is to survive. I use five case studies, then, varied on length of mobilization and democratic outcome to investigate the mechanisms. In particular, sustained unarmed uprisings have generated the longest-lasting new democracies – largely because they are forced to develop an organizational structure that provides a leadership cadre for the new regime, forges links between the government and society, and strengthens checks on the power post-transition government.