Democratization

Democratic forms of government are either consolidating democratic institutions or unraveling into authoritarianism in the former Soviet Union. Among the possible causes of each success or failure to consolidate democracy is the character of civil society and its cultural proximity to long-standing, modern state-based, consolidated democracies of the West. What impact does Western or Westernized media have upon the indigenous civil societies of Eastern Europe, and is this impact sufficient to consolidate democracy among the states of the former Soviet Union? As case studies, Eastern Europe contains two states, Estonia and Russia, where democracy has either succeeded or failed alongside the presence of exogenous cultural influence in the form of Western or Westernized television broadcast media. To what extent does the presence of Western broadcast media and associated cultural memes predict the iv consolidation of democratic political values, and how ought any impact of these memes be interpreted in the light of modernity, Eurocentricity and cultural hegemony? To account for the impact of exogenous cultural influence, foreign policy prescriptions that encourage the growth of indigenous, mimetic, democratic civic culture would appear to be an effective means of supporting democracy in the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe.

The recent explosive growth of Protestantism in Latin America has led a number of scholars to predict that the region may be on its way to reaching a significantly higher levels of socioeconomic development and democracy. These are important claims for a region that has struggled with both economic development and democratic consolidation. This thesis argues that Protestantism in Latin America does not follow the classical Weberian pattern of development. Because the majority of Protestant growth in the region is Pentecostal, the causal assumptions of the--culture and development school do not hold. Furthermore, a context of neoliberalism, a significant colonial legacy, and wide income disparities continue to hinder the potential for development. Based on a review of secondary sources and specific data from the case of Guatemala, this thesis argues that while individual Protestants may experience some upward social mobility, the growth of Protestantism has done little to advance the socioeconomic and political development of the region.

Democracy promotion is an important tenet of United States foreign policy. However, U.S. democracy promotion efforts are conditioned by geopolitical concerns, economic goals, and security interests. This thesis analyzes the impact of U.S. foreign policy in Chile, Colombia, El Salvador and Nicaragua. Evidence from these cases suggests that United States foreign policy has contributed to the growth of unhealthy or pseudo-democracies in Latin America because frequently the policy reinforces the political and economic power of entrenched elites or the military. These groups, whose interests more closely align with U.S interests, are often uncommitted to supporting policy that promotes human rights and equitable distribution of wealth and power or that demands universal political liberties. Democracy is promoted rhetorically rather than in practice, and consequently is unresponsive and illegitimate. Future democracy promotion efforts by the United States, if they are to be successful, must overcome this illegitimacy by compensating for the conflicts that conditioned democracy produces.

Latin America has undergone a "third wave" of democratization and free market economic reforms, known as "neoliberalism." Neoliberalism radically altered what had been statist or corporatist economic systems, under austere programs that mandated deregulation, privatization, currency devaluation, and the elimination of protective tariffs and subsidies. Seventeen Latin American nations were examined in the aggregate, comparing levels of economic reform with measures of political and civil rights and freedoms, poverty, inequality, and popular support for democratic institutions and practices. The tests were repeated within two in-depth case studies, Argentina and Mexico. In all three cases, neoliberalism was statistically linked with increased political rights and freedom, but failed to improve levels of poverty and inequality, and was shown to be partially responsible for downturns in popular support for democratic institutions (i.e. Parliament) and practices (i.e. labor unions, legal protests).

From 1974-1990, more than thirty of the world's authoritarian regimes transitioned to democracy in what Samuel Huntington terms the third wave. Sixteen years following the conclusion of the third wave of democratization, the Castro regime remains the official government of the Cuban state. I examine what factors led to the continued existence of the Castro administration. Several factors account for the prolonged tenure of the Castro administration. Fidel was able to increase his political power through the monopolization of information. The ability of the Castro regime to maintain authority was further exacerbated as a result of the country's dependence on Soviet financing, the repositioning of a weakened Catholic Church, contradictory foreign policies of external actors such as the United States, and a powerless civil society.