Forging Democracy From Below - Insurgent Transitions in South Africa and El Salvador

Klappentext The recent replacement of authoritarian rule by democracy in both South Africa and El Salvador poses a puzzle: why did the powerful and fervently anti-democratic elites of these countries abandon death squads, apartheid, and the other tools of political repression and take a chance on democracy? Forging Democracy from Below, first published in 2000, shows how popular mobilization - in El Salvador an effective guerilla army supported by peasant collaboration and in South Africa a powerful alliance of labor unions and poor urban dwellers - eventually forced the elite to the bargaining table, and why both a durable settlement and democratic government were the result. Using interviews with both insurgent and elite actors as well as statistical analysis of macroeconomic developments, Elisabeth Wood documents an 'insurgent path to democracy' and challenges the view that democracy is the result of compromise among elite factions or the modernizing influence of economic development. Zusammenfassung Forging Democracy from Below! first published in 2000! shows how popular mobilization by poor and working class people in El Salvador and South Africa forced the powerful! anti-democratic elites of these countries to abandon their tools of political repression! and why a durable settlement and democratic government were the result. Inhaltsverzeichnis Introduction; 1. From civil war to democracy: improbable transitions in oligarchic societies; Part I. El Salvador's Path to Democracy: 2. From conservative modernization to civil war; 3. The structural foundation of a pact: the transformation of elite interests; 4. Negotiating a democratic transition to end civil war; Part II. From Racial Oligarchy to Pluralist Democracy in South Africa: 5. Apartheid, conservative modernization, and resistance; 6. The challenge to elite economic interests; 7. From recalcitrance to compromise; Conclusion; 8. The insurgent path to democracy in oligarchic societies; Epilogue: the legacy of democracy forged from below....

Product details

• Authors: Elisabeth Jean Wood, Elisabeth Jean (Professor Wood, Wood Elisabeth Jean
• Assisted by: Robert H. Bates (Editor), Peter Lange (Editor)
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 06.11.2000
• EAN: 9780521783231
• ISBN: 978-0-521-78323-1
• No. of pages: 274
• Series: Cambridge Studies in Comparati; Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education; POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Process / General, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Economy, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Ideologies / Democracy, El Salvador, POLITICAL SCIENCE / World / African, POLITICAL SCIENCE / World / Caribbean & Latin American, Southern Africa, Political structures: democracy, Political Economy, Political structures / systems: democracy