Democratic Transition Publications
Embracing Democracy in the Western Balkans
Dec 08, 2011In this volume, Cohen and Lampe offer a comparative, cross-regional study of the politics and economics of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Albania from 1999 until the present. more
Chronic Violence and its Reproduction: Perverse Trends in Social Relations, Citizenship, and Democracy in Latin America
Nov 01, 2011This report reviews a broad literature on the causes and social effects of chronic violence in Latin America and details the consistent and diverse ways that chronic violence undermines social relations and support for democracy. more
State, Society, and Transformation
Aug 31, 2011Based on a conference sponsored by the Centers for Advanced Study and Education (CASE) Program, this report discusses reintroducing the concept of society back into the study of the state in the former Soviet Union and Russia. more
Women, Muslim Laws and Human Rights in Nigeria: A Keynote Address
Jul 19, 2011What is the meaning of Shari’a law? How can we understand its implementation in different contexts, given the diversity in the practice of Islam in Africa and around the globe? What are the elements of Shari’a that are particularly relevant to the position of women and gender relations in the African nation(s) under consideration? more
Election Observation Missions: Making them Count
Jul 19, 2011International election observation is a work in progress, much like the international democratic system it aims to promote and develop. Today
election observation is disproportionately focused on the pre-election and election periods at the expense of the post-election period. International
organizations, national governments, and civil society are familiar with what is expected both before and during an election. Election “practices” exist and an international set of principles is now emerging to guide international elections
observers both before and during elections. more
Pilfering the Peace: The Nexus Between Corruption and Peacebuilding
Jul 12, 2011How might the best practices of peacebuilding be applied to anti-corruption? Based on interviews with trainers and staff of the Burundi Leadership Training Programme (BLTP) of the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, this article explores possible answers to that question in light of a successful peacebuilding effort. The author also flags ideas for future projects and research at the nexus of the two fields.
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A Challenge: The Arab Spring in North Africa and its Ramification on the Continent
Jul 12, 2011After the demise of the Soviet Bloc and the democratic transitions of Eastern Europe which witnessed very dramatic changes in internal and external polices of those countries, many thought that this would be the model for the Arab world to emulate. However, it was generally thought that it would be a decade before the Arab world was ready for such a transition. Accelerating the pace of democratization it was believed, would pave the way for extremist religious parties to assume power, leading to a radical shift in the foreign policy orientation of key Arab states. more
Making Peace After Genocide
Jul 12, 2011It is a small country, no larger than the state of Maryland, with a population numbering just over 8 million. The dimensions of the human tragedy that has played itself out in Burundi since the country’s independence in 1960, however, are anything but diminutive: an estimated 400,000 killed, some 800,000 forced to flee the country, and many tens of thousands internally displaced. The human catastrophe that is Burundi is dwarfed in Africa only by its neighbor, Rwanda, which in 1994 saw close to 1 million of its population systematically murdered. This report examines the efforts that regional states and other international actors undertook to end the Burundian cycle of violence. more
63. Decentralization and Regionalization after Communism: Lessons from Administrative and Territorial Reform in Poland and the Czech Republic
Jul 07, 2011While the regional level of authority has gained much attention in recent years
in Western Europe, Eastern Europe is still emerging from decades of centralization and
homogenization under communism. Several post-communist countries, however, have
taken steps toward administrative decentralization and territorial regionalization. This
article explores possible reasons for taking these steps and traces the progress of
administrative and territorial reform in two post-communist cases: Poland and the Czech Republic. The conclusion considers several implications of these reforms for domestic politics and foreign relations. more
60. Governed by Accession? Hard and Soft Pillars of Europeanization in Central and Eastern Europe
Jul 07, 2011With the collapse of state socialism in 1989, the formerly communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe (hereafter CEE) had no choice but to shake off their deeply ingrained Cold War mentality and try to take their place in a world characterized by globalization and increased regional integration. Their “return to Europe,” or integration into the structures of the European Community/European Union (EC/EU), passed an important milestone in 1993, when the EU made the historic decision to enlarge eastwards and accept new members from the formerly communist countries. Accession negotiations opened in spring 1998 for "fast-track" countries (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, and Estonia), and in February 2000 for "slow-track" countries (Bulgaria, Slovakia, Romania, Latvia, and Lithuania). This paper focuses on the CEE countries’ “accession perspective”—their motives, expectations, deliberations, and practical difficulties as they strive to become part of the EU’s anticipated eastward enlargement. more
