Volume 42, Number 4, July 2010

The processes surrounding the elaboration of democracy in Muslim societies can be examined via a comparative consideration of three West African countries: Senegal, Mali, and Niger. Departing from analyses that ask whether democracy can be established in Muslim societies, the key question is how the democratic question is framed and discussed in such religious contexts. The launching of African democratic experiments in the 1990s provoked significant negotiation and discussion both within religious society and between religious groups and the secular elite about the desired substance of democracy. These processes have gradually empowered Muslim majorities to challenge and nuance the agenda presented at the transitions, but this is a direct outcome of the democratic process itself.

How do military forces respond (or not respond) to mass protests during moments of constitutional crisis, when civilian opposition movements attempt to force elected officials from power before the end of their terms of office? Even in democracies, militaries deliberate about whether to obey orders to repress the opposition, balancing the costs of repression—the likelihood that they will face prosecution for human rights abuses or experience internal schisms—against the cost of disobeying the executive. The dominant strategy for militaries during moments of crisis is quartering—remaining confined to the barracks—and refusing to take sides. This finding is confirmed by contrasting military actions during three constitutional crises in Latin America—Argentina in 2001, Venezuela in 2002, and Bolivia in 2003.

Following the series of leftist victories in Latin America, scholars have focused on explaining how the left reached power but have overlooked the study of the left in government. Why have Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela adopted statist economic policies, while Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay have adhered to market orthodoxy? Three accounts—executive strength, drastic economic crises, and rentier state theory—are insufficient. Instead, differences in party system institutionalization best explain variation in economic policies. Institutionalized party systems make it more likely that leftist governments conduct piecemeal reforms, while inchoate party systems are conducive to significant economic transformations. This view is illustrated with cross-national evidence and case studies of Chile and Venezuela.

What factors enhance or inhibit social movement effectiveness when challenging the state? A comparison of anti-U.S. base protests in Italy and Ecuador demonstrates how ideational and institutional factors interact to produce an elite consensus on foreign policy issues. This consensus, or lack thereof, functions as a political barrier or opportunity for social movements. In Italy a foreign policy consensus favoring the sustenance of an Atlantic alliance constrained the efforts of Italian activists to block the expansion of an air base in northern Italy. Conversely, in Ecuador the absence of any clear consensus regarding U.S.-Ecuador relations enabled activists to penetrate the state and alter elite discourse on U.S. bases, resulting in the closure of the Manta Air Base.

Countries around the world have established quotas for women and minorities in electoral politics. The normative arguments often made to justify such measures generate three hypotheses—selection, hierarchy, and competition—which do not account for empirical patterns in how, where, and when groups receive guarantees. Working inductively, this article proposes an alternative explanation highlighting the importance of two types of repertoires of group representation: historical practices with regard to group recognition and transnational influences in the form of international pressure and information sharing. These hypotheses are evaluated via case studies of four countries where proposals have been made for both women and minorities, revealing that quotas are the product of vivid struggles over what kinds of identities deserve recognition.

Social capital, defined as a combination of generalized trust and access to social networks, has become a key concept in the social sciences in recent decades because it correlates with normatively desirable qualitative features of liberal democracy. The academic debate on social capital in the last fifteen years reflects a crucial theoretical dichotomy between the cultural/historical approach, which views social capital as an independent variable embedded in culturally and historically determined networks of civic engagement, and the institutionalist approach, which conceptualizes social capital as an intervening variable influenced by formal institutional structures of the polity, in conjunction with other variables, such as equality and homogeneity. Notwithstanding this theoretical controversy, both approaches find strong evidence that social capital contributes to improving the performance of democratic institutions and democracy at large.