Dissertation
Do Regime Types Matter - July .docx
(2019)
Abstract
Abstract
Over the past several decades, numerous authoritarian regimes experienced nonviolent action campaigns with goals calling for regime change, secession, or anti-occupation; however, their responses greatly differed. While many moved toward and established a democracy, others retained their current autocratic status or established a new form of autocracy. Causal explanations by scholars for these phenomena abound; nonetheless, only a few take into consideration how rulers’ different characteristics, which can be categorized by regime type, may affect their decisions to democratize when challenged by peaceful campaigns. Building on the theoretical argument that regime type can be a factor for explaining democratization, this study examines the responses of authoritarian regimes to nonviolent action campaigns between 1946 and 2008 using a mixed-methods approach. The findings from the logistic and logit qualitative analyses of this research reveal that military regimes compared with civilian regimes and monarchies are more likely to move toward and establish a democracy post-campaign; however, these differences are not statistically significant. While civilian regimes are prone to move toward democracy; they are unlikely to establish a democratic government after the campaign. Furthermore, the analyses show that all autocratic regimes not only tend to move toward democracy two-years post-campaign; they are also inclined to advance their democratic status five and even ten years later. The two qualitative case studies in this research, Duvalier’s civilian regime in Haiti and Suharto’ military regime in Indonesia, lend support to these quantitative findings. In addition, these case studies offer insights into why military regimes, rather than civilian regimes, are more likely to move toward democracy and fully establish a democratic government in response to a nonviolent action campaign.
Keywords
- Autocracy,
- Democracy,
- Democratization,
- Nonviolence,
- Regime Type
Disciplines
Publication Date
Summer July 25, 2019
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
Field of study
International Conflict Management
Department
School of Conflict Management, Peacebuilding and Development
Advisors
Dr. Maia Hallward, Dr. Tavishi Bhasin, Dr. Volker Franke
Citation Information
Margaret Slusher. "Do Regime Types Matter - July .docx" (2019) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/margaret-slusher/1/