Negotiating Democracy

Transitions from Authoritarian Rule

The road to democracy is not a primrose path, but a tricky and risky one. . . . In this volume, authors Gretchen Casper and Michelle M. Taylor have used game theory to help us understand the dynamics of political change in political systems where authoritarian regimes are on the verge of a transition to a democratic polity. . . . Students of comparative politics, especially those interested in developing nations in the formative state of democratic development, will find this volume a useful tool in understanding the political actors who play a major role in determining the scope and nature of democracy in their political systems.

Journal of Developing Areas

This book explains why some countries succeed in installing democracy after authoritarian rule, and why some of these new democracies make progress toward consolidation. Casper and Taylor show that a democratic government can be installed when elite bargaining during the transition process is relatively smooth. They view elite bargaining in twenty-four transitions cases, some where continued authoritarianism was the result, others where a democratic government was the result, and a third outcome where progress towards consolidation was the end product.

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Casper and Taylor present a highly lucid and readable exposition of the phenomena of democratic transitions involving a great variety of countries with their own distinct histories. Most important, they try-and manage reasonably well-to establish the 'path dependent' nature of democratic transitions.

Survival: The IISS Quarterly

This impressive, cross-national, game theoretic analysis of why democratic transition is successful only in some circumstances uses six cases from each of four different areas of the world. . . . Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

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about the authors

Gretchen Casper is associate professor of political science at Penn State University.

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Michelle Taylor is associate professor of political science at Texas A&M University.

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Transitions from Authoritarian Rule

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288 Pages, 6 x 9 in.

June, 1996

isbn : 9780822955887

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about the authors