Patterns of Diffusion: Comparing Democratic and Autocratic Waves
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12366 |
| Author | Kurt Weyland |
| Date | 01 November 2016 |
| Published date | 01 November 2016 |
Patterns of Diffusion: Comparing Democratic
and Autocratic Waves
Kurt Weyland
University of Texas at Austin
Abstract
This essay examines why the diffusion of autocratic rule tends to unfold more slowly, yet with greater effectiveness (‘success’)
than pro-democratic waves often do. A precedent of progressive regime change often inspires fairly unorganized crowds in
many other countries to initiative spontaneous emulation efforts, as it happened in the revolutions of 1848 and the Arab
Spring of 2011. Yet this lack of organization creates a high risk of failure. By contrast, the overthrow of democracy, which can
also stimulate imitation attempts, is usually spearheaded by well-established organizations, such as the military, which jump
on the bandwagon less rashly, but pursue their goals more effectively. Therefore, autocratic waves advance with lower speed,
yet greater ‘success’than pro-democratic riptides often do, as was evident in the diffusion of authoritarianism and fascism
during the interwar years and the spread of military dictatorships in Latin America during the 1960s and 1970s.
While political regime transitions often advance country by
country, on several occasions the modern era has seen demo-
cratic contention spread in massive, powerful waves. These
riptides draw enormous attention because they rapidly seem
to transform whole regions. The European revolution of 1848
and the Arab Spring of 2011 constitute the most dramatic
instances. Waves of regime change also gathered steam in
Europe in 1820/21 and 1830; across the globe from the late
1970s to the early 1990s; and in the post-Communist world
during the ‘color revolutions’of the early 2000s.
How do such progressive waves unfold, and when do
they achieve success in effecting democratic transitions?
Given the importance of internal socioeconomic, political,
and institutional conditions for a country’s regime type
(overview in Teorell, 2010), can clustered contention that
affects different countries at the same time effectively bring
liberal, democratic rule? Or do such waves sweep across
many countries at unpropitious moments and induce inter-
nal actors to initiate ill-considered, precipitous efforts, creat-
ing high risks of failure? Do the hopes aroused by these
liberating experiences overwhelm reason and prudence and
propel people toward rash steps that diverge from careful
assessments of opportunities and risks?
These questions turn even more provocative when one
considers reverse waves as well, namely the spread of reac-
tionary autocratic rule (Huntington, 1991, pp. 15–21). During
the interwar years, conservative authoritarianism and fascism
diffused in Europe and Latin America. And in the 1960s and
1970s, South America suffered a rash of right-wing military
coups that installed harsh dictatorships even in longstand-
ing democracies such as Chile and Uruguay (Lehoucq, 2016,
pp. 8–9; Smith, 2012, pp. 27–30).
Interestingly, none of these autocratic waves unfolded
with the high speed of several progressive ‘regime change
cascades’(Hale, 2013). Does this unhurried advance indicate
that powerful nondemocratic actors are more careful in tak-
ing the domestic power constellation into account? If so,
coup-mongers may be more successful than the euphoric
crowds pushing for democracy during upsurges of regime
contention. To raise a provocative question, do promoters of
autocracy act more rationally than advocates of political lib-
eralism and democracy?
Extending Weyland’s (2014) theory of pro-democratic
waves to autocratic cascades, this essay emphasizes organi-
zational structures. The different patterns and success rates
of pro-democratic vs. autocratic waves did not arise from
actors’regime preferences, but their level of organization.
Most actors that helped impose authoritarian rule boasted
fairly consolidated organizations, such as institutionalized
militaries. By contrast, the forces pushing for democracy
include broad masses, which often act in a fairly unorga-
nized fashion, especially during striking tsunamis of regime
contention. While this spontaneity drives the exhilarating
upsurge of protest, lack of organization makes it difficult to
sustain mass mobilization and soon allows status quo
defenders to reverse protesters’initial achievements. Para-
doxically, therefore, the most exciting, hope-inspiring waves
of pro-democratic contention end up bringing the least suc-
cess. The better-prepared moves by reactionary organiza-
tions to roll back political liberty and popular participation
come to fruition more often.
Before explaining these arguments in greater depth, some
conceptual clarifications are in order. This essay defines
‘democracy’conventionally via a procedural minimum in lib-
eral, pluralist terms, while understanding ‘autocracy’as a
broad category that includes authoritarianism (specifically,
full/’closed’authoritarianism) and fascism. The analysis thus
focuses on clear-cut regime types rather than hybrid
Global Policy (2016) 7:4 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12366 ©2016 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Global Policy Volume 7 . Issue 4 . November 2016 557
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