**3. The foundation of democracy**

greater interest in the geographical scope of transitions, the driving engines behind such democratic change and the possibilities of further democracy building within newly democratized states. Scholars agreed that the third wave was global in scope and how the numerous transitions actually led to the number of democratic regimes now outnumbering authoritarian regimes for the first time in human history. Both scholars and international politicians argued how democracy was a symbol of good governance and how the wave of democratic transitions had shown "the unabashed victory of economic and political liberalism" in the world [14]. The global victory of political liberalism was argued to consist of the democratic transitions that established government by the people based on popular free and fair elections in multi-party systems. For almost half a century, the scholarly world had argued that democracy was based on free and fair elections. In his famous study, Schumpeter [15] presented a minimal definition on democracy and became the founding father of a procedural definition of democracy. Schumpeter's definition of an electoral democracy focused on competing political elites for power. From this perspective, democracy was perceived as a political tool for selecting politicians and how popular elections, as a core political procedure, were essential for the spread and consolidation of other crucial political rights and civil liberties often tied to

In the early 2000s, however, a growing number of individual academic studies, think-tanks and statistical assessments on democratic freedoms identified new challenges to the previous global transitions embedded in the third wave of democratization. Though this has not yet been argued to be the signs of a third reverse wave of global authoritarianism, scholars have pointed out worrying signs of democratic challenges across the world. First, it has been argued that many transitional states have turned up as vague electoral democracies with authoritarian characteristics. They have had free and fair elections, but have continued to face political, economic and social obstacles that have had negative impacts on the democratization process. These obstacles have created political societies of democratic fuzziness where democratic patterns have been mixed with undemocratic ones. Such obstacles may be found in electoral democracies with patterns of restricted participation and liberties, electoral democracies influenced by the existence of personal rule and patron-client relationships, electoral democracies with the existence of human rights abuses, electoral democracies in which there is a massive and perhaps uncontrolled popular mobilization that challenges order and stability and/or electoral democracies where undemocratic actors, such as the military, continue to influence politics. All these democracies may have elections and may tolerate legal alternative parties in opposition to the ruling party, but they are challenged by other major problems that influence the democratization process and democratic stability [16]. Second, it has also been argued that we have seen an authoritarian surge in international affairs with greater activities among major authoritarian powers to contain democracy around the world. Aside from limiting democratic rights and liberties at home, authoritarian states have actively coordinated foreign policy actions to halt the global spread of democracy. Such authoritarian measures have included media initiatives to limit the impact of Western news around the world, political actions against pro-democracy and human rights' organizations, such as in global and regional intergovernmental organizations, and in civil society. Altogether, "The extent of the authoritarian challenges forces us to confront the disconcerting prospect that the

democratic systems and societies.

178 Globalization

There has been a long and on-going scholarly discussion on how to define and measure democratic and nondemocratic regimes [19]. Democracy is a fuzzy and multifaceted concept. In the literature on building democracy, two conceptions of democracy are relevant; a minimalist and maximalist perspective. First, the minimalist perspective has defined democracy as an electoral democracy, focusing on the procedural system of institutions and the institutional mechanism of free and fair elections. An electoral democracy has embedded the procedure of free and fair elections in which political elites compete for political power and where the population uses the election to check the political power from wrong-doings. The scholarly studies on electoral democracy has stressed the importance of political procedure to ensure political rights and civil liberties, although the main focus from a minimalist perspective has been on the implementation of elections as a guarantee for the idea of government by the people. Such definition of democracy has been argued to provide scholars with the ability to make comparative studies on democracy-building in different states by analyzing if there are free and fair elections or not [20].

Second, the maximalist perspective has, in comparison to the minimalist perspective on electoral democracy, focused on a more substantive democracy embedding political rights and civil liberties beyond the procedure of free and fair elections. Such conceptualization of a liberal democracy has developed out of the notion of the "fallacy of electoralism" [21], meaning paying too much attention to the election and missing out on other important political rights and civil liberties in a democracy. It has been argued that the fallacy of electoralism may lead to the definition of states as democracies, although such states consist of nondemocratic traits. Although free and fair elections are important in democracies, focus on electoralism only is a too narrow perspective on what democracy is all about. The maximalist perspective has therefore introduced the definition of a liberal democracy, based on the procedural ingredients in an electoral democracy, but also including additional rights and liberties in, for example, minority rights, politically equality, freedom of belief, opinion, discussion, speech, publication and assembly, the rule of law and securing human rights, etc. [22]. It has been argued that three fundamental dimensions exist in a liberal democracy; high level of competition, participation and liberties. As summarized by Georg Sørensen,

*"Meaningful and extensive competition among individuals and organized groups (especially political parties) for all effective positions of government power, at regular intervals and excluding the use of force.*

*A highly inclusive level of political participation in the selection of leaders and policies, at least through regular and fair elections, such that no major (adult) social group is excluded.*

*A level of civil and political liberties—freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom to form and join organizations—sufficient to ensure the integrity of political competition and participation" [23].*

and to some degree political pluralism, although such pluralism is never allowed to become political influential and challenge the ruling political elites. It should, however, be stated that democracy-building is far easier to achieve in an authoritarian setting compared to a totalitarian one. This is due to the existing political institutions in an authoritarian society, the allowance of pluralism and political opposition and to the more limited use of state violence and

Building Democracy: National and International Factors http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.71984 181

The previous trends of democratic progress around the world, followed by recent pessimistic assessments of returning authoritarianism, have led to a redeveloped interest in how to build democracies worldwide. There is a long tradition of studying how to protect and promote democracy. The main focus has been to identify the explanatory factors or driving engines that encourage countries to transition to democracy and in how to consolidate new democracies to become stabile and enduring. There has been a dominating focus on national factors for the transitions to democracy. The research on explanatory factors for building democracy grew out of an increasing number of studies on domestic actors and structures of the 1950s and onward, focusing primarily on socioeconomic factors. This approach was tied to developmental studies and was referred to as the modernization school or the modernization thesis. One of the first and most important studies on economic development and its role in modernization was Dankwart Rostow's *Politics and the Stages of Growth* [27]. In the 1960s, in the context of decolonization and new independent states, studies focused on how to establish political order and stability. The modernization perspective on political order was illustrated by the famous study by Lipset, *Political Man* [28]. Lipset argued that modernization, in terms of a high level of gross national product, was an important driving engine for building democracy. By assessing democracies around the world, it was convincingly argued how high levels of modernized socioeconomic structures were related to democratic states. In other words, states with economic modernization would become transitional democracies and, with further modernization, also become consolidated democracies. Lipset's focus on economic factors for democratization could be summarized as the more well-to-do a nation, the greater the chances that nation will sustain democracy; this became a major insight on how to explain democratization and triggered further studies on when modernization has

been an important explanatory factor to build democracies and when it has not.

Over time, new studies began to explore a more complex picture of modernization and democratization by unfolding a more detailed understanding about what economic and social indicators could trigger democracy building. These studies did not question the importance of modernization for political development, but pinpointed the economic and social structures that are needed to be developed to see democratization. It was argued that democracy building was based on economic progress embedding improved infrastructure, higher levels of education, shared societal values and improved health, etc. The main point made was that modernization embedded social issues that became explanatory factors to democracy rather than just focusing on pure economic growth. States with economic growth could

terror compared to totalitarian systems.

**4. Building democracy: national factors**

The minimalist perspective and the maximalist perspective on democracy have provided scholars on democratization with important theoretical notions of foundations of democracy. Overall, there has been a scholarly tradition to implement the minimalist definition of democracy when analyzing democracy-building, by focusing on free and fair election as an important mechanism to promote other political rights and civil liberties. This has resulted in the conclusion that building democracy is very much about institutionalizing free and fair elections. However, the scholarly studies on building liberal democracy have stressed the possibility and importance of further developing electoral democracies, beyond the free and fair elections, including political rights and civil liberties. Robert Dahl has presented a well-known conceptualization of a democracy (polyarchy). His definition of democracy may be seen as a midrange definition between a minimal and maximal definition of democracy. Dahl has presented two dimensions of a democracy in contestation and participation. First, contestation refers to structured political competition through free and fair elections and second, participation refers to the popular right to participate as voters and/or politicians. In his definition of democracy, eight important institutions are mentioned. These are freedom to form and join organizations, freedom of expression, right to vote, eligibility for public office, right of political leaders to compete for support and votes, alternative sources of information, free and fair elections and institutions for making government policies depend on votes and other expressions of preference. Although Dahl's definition focuses on electoral procedures, contestation and participation also embed other political rights and civil liberties. To ensure the implementation of democracy in contestation and participation, it is argued that civil liberties are crucial. Such liberties are, for example, freedom to think, believe, worship, speak and publish one's views as well as the freedom to form and join organizations among other things [24].

The scholarly discussion on definitions of democracy has come with studies on nondemocratic states. The process of democracy building starts in a nondemocratic environment which may be of different natures such as one-party-states, military regimes, dynastic rule, theocratic rule, tyranny, oligarchy, absolutism, despotism and monarchy, etc. The research on nondemocratic regimes has set out different types. At first, democracies stood in sharp contrast to the totalitarian type. The totalitarian regime was characterized as a regime-type enforcing state objectives and goals on society and citizens, by concentrating all power to the elite and by subordinating societal activities and people to the control of the regime. In sharp contrast to a democracy, the totalitarian society was defined as an atomized society with very limited independent political, economic, social and judicial institutions due to the total control by the regime through the use of propaganda and terror [25]. To uphold total control, research has come to stress the importance of the implementation of an official ideology, single mass party, secret police, full control of communication, monopoly of coercive methods and a central control of the economy [26]. Another and more common nondemocratic regime has been the authoritarian regime. The authoritarian regime, compared to the totalitarian, has said to have a limited official ideology that dictates societal sectors and with a less powerful, violent and controlling police. The authoritarian regime is also open for socioeconomic pluralism and to some degree political pluralism, although such pluralism is never allowed to become political influential and challenge the ruling political elites. It should, however, be stated that democracy-building is far easier to achieve in an authoritarian setting compared to a totalitarian one. This is due to the existing political institutions in an authoritarian society, the allowance of pluralism and political opposition and to the more limited use of state violence and terror compared to totalitarian systems.
