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8 - Conclusion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2016

Reyko Huang
Affiliation:
Texas A&M University
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Summary

Democratization can, and often does, follow on the heels of violent internal conflict. How is it that in the aftermath of civil war citizens would find themselves with improved channels for political participation, greater political rights, and more equal representation? In this study, I have shown that under certain conditions democratization takes place not despite, but as a result of, internal warfare. Civil war, with all its brutality and bloodshed, forces a moment of reckoning with the failures of the incumbent regime and creates an opening in which armed actors vie for the power to remodel the political landscape. Though the ultimate outcome of civil wars is heterogeneous, democratization has been the experience for a significant proportion of states emerging from conflict since 1950. This occurs, I have found, because elites in power at war's end use democratization as a strategy of power maintenance in the face of widespread popular demand for change. Such large-scale social stirrings may be seen in the form of organized street demonstrations and protests spiking in number at the end of a conflict, but should also find expression in public discourse and debate, and in the collective expectation of a more inclusive government and society as a war dividend. This social mobilization for change, in turn, is a byproduct of rebel groups’ engagement with civilians as a major input in their war-making. Rebel engagement with civilians matters for democratization not because it demonstrates the rebels’ political deftness, governance capacity, or democratic inclination, but rather because it alters the citizens themselves and the society writ large. People-based violent movements, as they contend militarily for state power, end up turning the people themselves into political contenders who will not sit idly by while postwar elites jostle with one another in the process of regime formation. The result of wartime civilian mobilization, then, is that in the wake of armed conflict ordinary people will have become a major political force alongside state elites and former rebels. In the immediate aftermath of war, ignoring or suppressing popular demands for change threatens to incur significant costs on the elite. Postwar political leaders thus choose to dispense democratic reforms as a way to keep their grip on their hard-earned power in the transition from war to peace and to ensure the war stays ended.

Type
Chapter
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The Wartime Origins of Democratization
Civil War, Rebel Governance, and Political Regimes
, pp. 175 - 187
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2016

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  • Conclusion
  • Reyko Huang
  • Book: The Wartime Origins of Democratization
  • Online publication: 05 September 2016
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316711323.008
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  • Conclusion
  • Reyko Huang
  • Book: The Wartime Origins of Democratization
  • Online publication: 05 September 2016
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316711323.008
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Conclusion
  • Reyko Huang
  • Book: The Wartime Origins of Democratization
  • Online publication: 05 September 2016
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316711323.008
Available formats
×