Parties, Movements, and Democracy in the Developing World

Download or read book Parties, Movements, and Democracy in the Developing World written by Nancy Bermeo and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-12-01 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume analyzes regime politics in the developing world. By focusing on the civilian, collective actors that forge democracy and sustain it, this book moves beyond materialist arguments focusing on gross domestic product (GDP), poverty, and inequality. With case material from four continents, this volume emphasizes the decisive role played by parties and movements in forging democracy against the odds. These pivotal collectivities are consistently the key civilian collectivities that successfully mobilized for democracy, that helped forge enduring democratic institutions, and that shaped the quality of the democracies that emerged; they are the ones tasked with mobilizing along a range of social cleavages, confronting seemingly inhospitable conditions, and coordinating the process of regime change. While the presence of parties and movements alone is not sufficient to explain democracy, their absence is detrimental to enduring democratic regimes. Thus, this volume refocuses our attention on parties and movements as critical mechanisms of regime change.