This paper assesses the contribution of South African nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to the process of democratic consolidation. By drawing on a 1998 survey conducted among 270 NGOs, on several expert interviews, and on an analysis of the structures and programmes of the umbrella body of South African NGOs (Sangoco), the author presents a multi-faceted picture of the activities of the South African NGO sector. The focus is on the NGOs’ role as (1) “schools of democracy,” (2) in bridging societal cleavages, and (3) in providing channels of interest representation for the most marginalized sections of the population. The paper concludes that the contribution of South African NGOs to the process of democratic consolidation is significant, but highly dependent on an enabling external environment.

This paper examines, through three surveys and some interview data, the dynamics of contemporary Palestinian civil society organizations (CSOs) from the angle of their role in the process of democratization. The paper analyses the emergence, nature, and structures of CSOs in Palestine, and emphasizes the role of the public in democratization. In particular it assesses both the positive and negative facets of CSOs’ work from the perspective of their possible role in democratization. It is concluded that CSOs play a positive but limited role in the democratization of Palestinian society.

The literature on democratization uses measures of either ethnic fractionalization or polarization in empirical analyses on the causes of democratic regress; some authors have argued that either of the two complicates democratization. This article detects a conceptual puzzle in this use of the two concepts: when we shift the attention from fractionalization to polarization we are not simply moving along a continuum but rather making an epistemic leap from facts to normative problems. But to treat the relation between a descriptive account of a state of affairs and a normative status as a continuum is a fallacy that remains unaddressed in this literature. This article exposes the limits of analyses that remove normative considerations from the big picture of dynamics of democratization and that narrow their focus to case histories of democratic development. It pleas for a return to normative insight and interdisciplinary dialogue.

Focusing on selected “Western” conceptions of democracy, we expose and normatively evaluate their conflictual meanings. We unpack the white democracy of prominent ordoliberal Wilhelm Röpke, which comprises an elitist bias against the demos, and we discuss different assessments of his 1964 apologia of Apartheid South Africa. Our critical-historical study of Röpke's marginalized meaning of democracy traces a neglected anti-democratic continuity in his work that is to be contextualized within wider elitist (neo)liberal discourses: from his critique of Nazism in the 1930s to the defense of Apartheid in the 1960s. We provide an alternative, marginalized meaning of democracy that draws on Marxist political science. Such a meaning of democracy helps explain why liberal democratic theory is ill-equipped to tackle anti-democratic tendencies re-emerging in liberal-democratic polities.

The debate on regime change has experienced a U-turn. Attention has shifted from the regime transitions occurred during the so-called third wave of democratization to the signals of an incipient reverse trend. However, the actual import and urgency of the problem remain unclear, due to a growing confusion concerning what a process opposite to democratization is, how many distinct forms it can take, and consequently what the empirical referents of the phenomenon are. Building on the notion of “autocratization”, or regime change towards autocracy, the paper elaborates a framework for the comparative analysis of regime changes opposite to democratization. Specifically, we identify political participation, public contestation and executive limitation as the main dimensions of regime variance, define autocratization accordingly, illustrate and systematize the different regime transitions that fall under this label, and clarify what autocratization is not. The proposed conceptual and analytical framework could support future research on comparative autocratization.

Why has “democracy” become a standard reference in the statements and declarations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)? Discussion about domestic governance and regime types in member states has traditionally been considered off-limits in official ASEAN dialogue. Membership does not require democratic rule, and there are no grounds for suspension or expulsion of a member state due to domestic political circumstances (such as an unconstitutional change of government). Further, the norm of non-interference means that the (politically diverse) member states have traditionally refrained from criticizing each other’s internal affairs. As such, it is puzzling that ASEAN commonly refers to the importance of “strengthening” and “promoting” democracy. The article argues that we should not overlook the diversity of views about democracy within ASEAN. Member states have mostly avoided discussion about how (strengthening and promoting) democracy is defined in ASEAN, because it is a sensitive matter. The article also engages in a critical analysis of the way in which a “democratization narrative” shapes many perspectives on democracy in ASEAN.

This introductory article to Democratic Theory's special issue on the marginalized democracies of the world begins by presenting the lexical method for understanding democracy. It is argued that the lexical method is better than the normative and analytical methods at finding democracies in the world. The argument then turns to demonstrating, mainly through computational research conducted within the Google Books catalog, that an empirically demonstrable imbalance exists between the democracies mentioned in the literature. The remainder of the argument is given to explaining the value of working to correct this imbalance, which comes in at least three guises: (1) studying marginalized democracies can increase our options for alternative democratic actions and democratic innovations; (2) it leads to a conservation and public outreach project, which is epitomized in an “encyclopedia of the democracies”; and (3) it advocates for a decolonization of democracies’ definitions and practices and decentering academic democratic theory.

In this discussion of democracy's conceptual pluralism(s), Frederic Schaffer holds a guiding lamp to show what researchers should take into consideration in the study of “the democracies” and their “rough equivalents” as can be found across language, culture, time, and space. This act generates a focus on practical tactics in research and knowledge dissemination. Is it, for example, best to establish an international committee of democracy's epistemic experts to gather, code, and organize the meanings of democracy and their rough equivalents as can be found in the world? And, with such a committee or something altogether different, how can we relate this information to pro-democracy institutions and activists when so many appear to be interested only in liberal conceptions of democracy? The discussion ends with considerations of an open range of research and activism in the fields of democratic theory, comparative politics, and democratization.

This research focuses on understanding how giving circle (GC) member identities are associated with the identities of funding recipients. It examines whether GC members are more likely than non-members to give to people who are like them (bonding social capital) and/or to people who are not like them (bridging social capital). We draw on data from a survey of GC members and a comparison control group of non-GC members. Findings show GC members and those not in GCs are both more likely to give to a shared identity group—related to race, gender, and gender identity—leading to bonding social capital. However, GC members are more likely than those not in GCs to give to groups that do not share their identity, suggesting GCs also encourage bridging social capital. We assert both bonding and bridging social capital might lead to the democratization of philanthropy by expanding giving to historically marginalized groups.

Religion is now politically active in ways that until recently were unthinkable. Both in Europe and elsewhere in the world, there are numerous examples of how religion has left its previously assigned place in the private sphere, becoming in some cases an important contributor to various political issues, conflicts and competitions. To understand what has happened in this regard necessarily involves a remodelling and re-assumption of our understanding of the public roles of religious actors. Until the 1960s or 1970s, theories of secularization had long condemned religious actors in both Western and non-Western countries to social and political marginalization. Secularization theory maintained that as countries modernized, religion would lose its public centrality. But, as this did not happen, there is now a need to rethink the public role of religion. This article is concerned with this issue, with a focus on Europe, using democratization, democracy and civil liberties as key examples.

Global civil society has become an important paradigm for progressive social change at a planetary level. It posits a bold new ethical project for global democratization. For its critics, though, it is just the social wing of neoliberal globalization diverting social movements from their tasks. It is also seen as irredeemably Eurocentric in its assumptions and orientation. A third option, proposed here, is to understand global civil society as a complex social and spatial terrain. By bringing politics back in, a progressive option can be presented to contest the dominant co-optive or reformist conception of global civil society.

Besides elections, the sub-Saharan wave of political reforms of the 1990s led several countries to introduce limits to the number of terms that a chief executive can serve, even though several leaders managed to bypass them. While Africa’s executive term limits (ETLs) politics has gained scholarly attention, the literature mostly consists of in-depth small-N analyses. Systematic comparative research is rare. To contribute filling this gap, this article presents a new Africa Executive Term Limits (AETL) dataset. Covering 49 sub-Saharan polities throughout the 1990–2019 period, AETL represents the most complete and updated collection of data on Africa’s ETLs politics, and a versatile research tool to address several questions on the present and future of this continent. A preliminary assessment of the new data finds ETLs to be increasingly respected, and to have positive returns for government alternation and development. These findings point to new research avenues that AETL may help travel.

Amidst a global turn towards authoritarianism and populism, there are few contemporary examples of state-led democratization. This article discusses how Uruguay's Frente Amplio (FA) party has drawn on a unique national democratic cultural heritage to encourage a coupling of participatory and representative institutions in “a politics of closeness.” The FA has reinvigorated Batllismo, a discourse associated with social justice, civic republicanism, and the rise of Uruguayan social democracy in the early twentieth century. At the same time, the FA's emphasis on egalitarian participation is inspired by the thought of Uruguay's independence hero José Artigas. I argue that the cross-weave of party and movement, and of democratic citizenship and national heritage, encourages the emergence of new figures of the citizen and new permutations for connecting citizens with representative institutions. The FA's “politics of closeness” is an example of how state-driven democratization remains possible in an age described by some as “post-democratic.”

This article reflects on the significance of Ukraine’s European choice—a series of pro-European political choices that both Ukraine’s citizens and its political elites gradually committed to, and which crystallized during and after the 2013 Euromaidan protest. Russia refused to accept Ukraine’s European choice, starting the first wave of aggression against Ukraine as soon as the Euromaidan won in early 2014, and ultimately launching the full-scale invasion in February 2022. As Ukrainians defend their European choice, important lessons can be drawn from their resistance to Russia’s aggression. We identify three lessons for Europe and three lessons for political science.

This article considers how civil society organizations (CSOs) may be understood in relation to the global refugee regime complex. It describes how several leading scholars have conceptualized refugee/internally displaced person (IDP) governance and explores how the neoliberal cognitive frame is impeding the possibility of democratic agency among IDPs/refugees. It argues that CSOs can play essential roles in encouraging democratization of the refugee regime complex by working to reshape their prevailing frame or orientation. Civil society organizations can also work to foster critical reflexivity among the parties that govern refugees and within that population as well. As an example of one such effort, the article employs Fraser’s (Scales of justice: reimagining political space in a globalizing world. Columbia University Press, New York, 2010) democratization framework in a brief case analysis of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Deshodaya initiative in Sri Lanka that has sought to enable IDPs in that nation to embrace critical reflexivity to reimagine themselves as governing agents who can redefine state and international organization-based definitions of refugee protection. Overall, the analysis suggests that civil society organizations can act successfully and intentionally to open democratic spaces in which refugees/IDPs may find possibilities to exercise their innate agential possibility.

This article examines civil society strengthening experience in Indonesia to illuminate issues, challenges, and lessons for non-governmental organization (NGO) capacity building and international donor-supported democratic reform. The authors conceive of capacity as a function of contextual factors, and internal factors associated with an individual NGO or a network of NGOs. Contextual factors that need to be taken into account in Indonesia include weak reform implementation, state distrust of NGOs, and backsliding on some basic freedoms. Among the important internal features of NGOs in democracy promotion are overreliance on confrontational advocacy strategies, shallow organizational capacity, inability to cooperate to leverage impact, limited outreach to indigenous constituencies and sustainability problems. Indonesia’s democracy-promotion NGO coalitions have largely operated as instruments of donor-supported reforms. As they seek to become socially embedded actors pursuing indigenous agendas, they face the need to confront the various expectations of their stakeholders regarding their roles and legitimacy, develop flexibility to respond to new engagements with government and with citizens, and address their internal capacity gaps. Three cases are presented that illustrate both the problems and the encouraging progress with government–NGO collaborations in democratic governance.