Elections and Transformation

Research output: Contribution to Book/Report typesChapterpeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

Competitive political elections are frequent objects of cynicism, but also carriers of great transformative expectations. This chapter reviews the comparative literature about their transformational power in three realms. It discusses the democratizing power of multiparty elections in electoral authoritarian regimes; the capacity of elections to deepen the democratic quality of minimal democracies; and their civilizing power in the face of democratic state repression and societal violence. In all three areas, the balance is sobering. The mere existence of competitive elections does not lead to either democratizing or civilizing progress. Their actual transformative power depends on the willingness and capacity of democratic actors to exploit the institutional opportunities they offer.
Original languageAmerican English
Title of host publicationThe Handbook of Political, Social, and Economic Transformation
EditorsWolfgang Merkel, Kai Kollmorgen, Hans-Jürgen Wagener
Place of PublicationOxford
PublisherOxford University Press
Pages486–491
ISBN (Print)9780191868368
DOIs
StatePublished - 2019

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