TY - JOUR
AU - Zinecker, Heidrun
AB - Abstract Research on transitions has reached a crossroad. Should it be abandoned because the third wave of transitions to democracy has ended, or should it continue because so much remains unaccounted for regarding the third wave? This paper suggests that regime hybridity constitutes a widespread institutional setting resulting from incomplete transitions. Regime-hybridity is defined as a specific regime type in which “partial regimes” within the “political regime” are democratic while others are nondemocratic, although not necessarily authoritarian. Underlying the concept is the assumption that the “political regime” stretches beyond the institutions of the state to include civil society. It is at this level that the work on transitions can be connected to the research on the dynamics of economic exclusion in the context of rent economies. This paper develops a checklist for identifying “partial regimes” that constitute regime-hybridity and applies it to the case of Colombia to identify linkages between political transition and socioeconomic transformation. Transition studies stand at a crossroads: has their purpose been fulfilled because democratic regimes have been established worldwide at the end of the third wave of democratization, with only regime consolidation remaining on the agenda? Or has the “paradigm” of transition studies come to an end because it is still not understood why only a few democracies exist in developing countries? This paper assumes that transition studies still have a function to perform, provided that the size and continuity of the gap between norm and reality is taken into account. The notion that the debate on transition toward democracy does not hold the rank of an independent theory (Nohlen and Thibaut 1994:195) is still topical. Pure theory is not useful when dealing with transitions because, as Merkel (1994:321) argues, “a single theoretical approach, no matter how impressive its epistemological elegance and frugality might be, cannot explain the modification and change of political systems.” Authors with a pure theoretical orientation tend to shield themselves from too much “disturbing” empiricism—in doing so theory becomes an incestuous end in itself. In contrast, a controlled eclectic theoretical approach set against the background of theoretically concentrated results from empirically saturated area-studies allows the welding together of empiricism and theory. “Transitologists” are border crossers not only because they mark regime borders and explain why they are crossed, but also because they cross borders between theoretical concepts, between theory and empirical research, and between inductive and deductive generation of theories. It is only when transition studies acknowledge such a situation and conceive of it as a random result that it will fulfill the mission of transition in the sense mentioned above. The following considerations on regime hybridity are based on a combination of concepts that originated from political science/transition analysis as well as from a political economy/development theory approach. The underlying assumption is that in order for a transition to complete its full cycle, political levers need to be established that guarantee the political participation of the lower classes by the redistribution of the economic factors of production in their favor in order to overcome marginality. We emphasize such a “lever function” of policy because of the need to have a democratic process present in order to achieve socioeconomic development; because we aim for a synergy effect that may, in a novel way, re-open the door between transition studies and development theory,1 while at the same time leading transition studies out of their dead end. In this paper, we use the Anglo-Saxon definition of transition, which is the change from one political regime to another one, ideally from autocracy to democracy. Transformation, in contrast, is associated with socioeconomic change—in developing countries, ideally from a rent economy2 (with marginality) to a market economy (without marginality). Owing to this analytical separation, the interconnection between success and failure of both processes can be worked out more clearly than in studies that merge transition and transformation, and in so doing, dilute the impact of the two processes. This paper discusses the gray area between authoritarianism and democracy, which is typically found in developing countries that have not yet completed the transition to democracy. It is this tendency that has gained greater influence in the transition debate in the context of “the disillusionment after the period of pioneer work,” (Zinecker 1999) and which increasingly challenges its former teleological and behaviorist linearity. However, even more realistic authors who focus on this gray area usually evaluate transition and its results without referring to development theory. In contrast, we pursue two objectives: first, the concept of regime hybridity, which is still underdeveloped in the literature on gray-area research, and will be differentiated, energized, and operationalized—without dissolving the political regime into the socioeconomic dimension of the underlying regime definition but rather expanding the political dimension's definition from the state to civil society; secondly, it will examine whether there is a stable correlation between regime hybridity and the development shortfall that exists in rent economies. In doing so, democratization is neither considered here as a simple “epiphenomenon and consequence of the thorough capitalization of the world society” (Tetzlaff 1996:85), because democracy takes place without a “thorough capitalization,” that is, without abandoning a rent economy, nor is it assumed that democratization can be completely detached from the sociation (German: Vergesellschaftung) by a market economy because, in order to reach full democracy, the structures that determine a rent economy need to be broken down. If this is not achieved, then regime hybridity is the natural outcome. Up to the present, the economic liberalization and privatization policies advocated by both the International Monetary Fund and World Bank for developing countries have not created a capitalist economy that is sociated by the market nor a thorough capitalization that is based on strong, dynamic domestic entrepreneurs investing in capital intensive goods. Instead, the rent economy has been stabilized, even in its oligarchic version. Against this background, we posit the following hypothesis: hybrid regimes are symptomatic and will continue as the predominant type of political regime in developing countries, containing both democratic and nondemocratic partial regimes (on this concept, cf. Schmitter 2001). In contrast to assumptions made in the relevant literature, nondemocratic partial regimes are not necessarily authoritarian, and these can exist both within the state, and within civil society. A correlation exists between regime hybridity and rent economy (in particular, an oligarchic rent economy), which is the result of an incomplete transition to democracy and incomplete transformation to a market-sociated (capitalist) economy. The paper starts with a critical reflection on the new concepts of transition studies in the gray area between authoritarianism and democracy. It continues with the conceptualization and operationalization of a self-contained concept of regime hybridity, whose heuristic value will be shown in the case of Colombia. Finally, we argue for the necessity of having an interlocking exchange between democratization and development—as well as undertaking research on both. The Gray Area Between Authoritarianism and Democracy The idea of a gray area was first mentioned by the classical studies on transition by O'Donnell and Schmitter (1986:9), who referred to semi-democratic stages as “dictablanda” (limited authoritarianism) and “democradura” (limited democracy). As these denominations indicate, the subtypes of this approach tend to go in either direction—democracy or dictatorship—and provide little opportunity for a new or intermediary stage to evolve between the regime subtypes. “Democracies with adjectives” came into fashion with O'Donnell's (1994:55–69) term of “delegative democracy.” This ought to have limited the damage done by the previous exuberant optimism—prefixing a “pessimistic” adjective may save the “optimistic” noun. It also indicated that transition studies that once came up with dichotomic directness were bound to run into a dead end. After Latin America's “thorough democratization” (except for Cuba) was celebrated, even some of the most successful cases such as Argentina, Brazil, Perú, Ecuador, and Bolivia were labeled with the qualifying adjective of “delegative.” Years later, the same authors could count at most only six democracies in Latin America, viz, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Uruguay, Costa Rica and, with some limitations, Chile, even though these authors agreed on minimal procedural criteria (O'Donnell 2001:600). In the mean time, the consensus is that in Latin America only Costa Rica and Uruguay remain designated as “complete” democracies. Some of the classical transition studies such as the study of Lowenthal and Domínguez (1996:6f)concluded that “it is premature and indeed misleading to talk about “consolidating” democratic governance (…). In most nations, effective democratic governance is still incipient, inchoate, fragile, highly uneven, incomplete, and often contradicted.” This “disillusionment after the pioneering years” is methodologically reflected in a continuing reduction of democratic standards and the use of even more minimalist criteria. Alvarez, Antonio Cheibub, Limongi, and Przeworski (1996:18–20), for instance, reduced Dahl's criteria of democracy to “contestation” and settled instead for Schumpeter's (1950:397) minimal criteria of an “electoral regime.” It is also revealing that when democracy is prefixed with adjectives, it lessens its meaning in order to converge on a reality of “diminished subtypes” (Collier and Levitsky 1997:430–451) or, at least, attempt to do so. According to the relevant transition research, we find among such diminished subtypes “limited democracy,”“electoral democracy,”“delegative democracy,”“controlled democracy,”“tutelary democracy,”“guided democracy,”“protected democracy,”“facade democracy,”“low-intensive democracy,”“counterinsurgency–democracy,”“illiberal democracy,” and many more. With the formulation of “diminished subtypes,” democracy is considered as a “radial category” in contrast to authoritarianism, which is considered a “classical category” (Collier and Mahon 1993:845–855; Collier and Levitsky 1997:430–451). The addition of a secondary predicate (such as “bureaucratic”) to the primary category “authoritarianism” lowers its extension, while the addition of a (secondary) predicate to the primary category “democracy” (for example, the attribute “formal”) increases its extension. These authors attempt to avoid the problem of “conceptual stretching” deleting the attribute when dealing with “classical categories,” but when it comes to “radial categories” they attempt to avoid “conceptual stretching” by adding an attribute (Collier and Mahon 1993:852). Nevertheless, not all “democracies with adjectives” reflect “diminished subtypes” of democracies. The range of possible “conceptual stretching” of the “radial” category of democracy is not infinite. It ends when the adjective implies an antagonism with the term “democracy.” Although “limited democracy” or “defective democracy” serve as “diminished subtypes,”“counterinsurgency–democracy” or “illiberal democracy” do not. There is no such thing as an illiberal democracy—as liberal democracy has become synonymous with democracy in the twentieth century (Peeler 1998:XI)—in the same way as it is impossible to have a “cold fire.” This is also true for “violent” or “exclusionary democracy,” or, taken to an absurd conclusion, “authoritarian democracy.” Adjectives such as “illiberal,”“counterinsurgency,”“violent,” or “exclusionary” name basic criteria of a regime that are relevant to the definition and therefore challenge the scope of the term. Conversely, they do not support a definition of authoritarianism, which is the opposite of democracy. The gray area between authoritarianism and democracy is incontestable, but its dimension and continuation is greater than its “inventors” suppose, and it is typologically richer. Neither are the nondemocratic partial regimes reduced to a remnant of the former authoritarianism, nor is it in all cases true that the dimension of the nondemocratic partial regimes remains small enough for it to pass as a “diminished subtype” of a given democracy. The Concept of Embedded and Defective Democracy Among the efforts to make a virtue of the nondemocratic gloom by using “diminished subtypes” of democracy, the advocates of “defective democracy” (Merkel 1999:361–381; Merkel and Croissant 2000:3–30, 2004:1–58) proved to be the most critical and innovative. The authors derive “defective democracy” from the root concept of “embedded democracy.” Embedded democracy underlies the concept that a democratic system of rule constitutes political order, they are multidimensional, and can be distinguished from partial regimes (electoral system, political right to participation, effective governance, system of checks and balances, right to civil defense, and civil liberty). Embedded means that the logical function of a partial regime through embeddedness with another partial regime is not annulled, but rather will be directed into certain channels. The dominance of one of modern democracy's structural principles of over another is therefore impeded. At the same time, embedded refers also to an external embeddedness of democracy in civil society, state and economy because, according to the authors, each democracy is embedded in an environment. Defective democracies are defined by Merkel and others as “systems of governance that stand out through the existence of significant and effective electoral regimes to regulate the access to power—but which loose their complementary support through interference with the logical function of the remaining partial regimes—in a functioning democracy for the necessary protection of freedom.” (Merkel et al. 2003:66). At least two aspects are problematic in this definition: (1) It is assumed that there is a functioning and a non-functioning democracy, which is however, still a democracy; I argue that a non-functioning democracy is not a democracy. (2) Only the largely functioning democratic electoral regime is, according this concept, a defining attribute of democracies. That invalidates the originator's initially postulated claim about democracies, which goes beyond even Dahl's polyarchy. The originators of this concept were able to observe the unease that is reached when analyzing the results of transitions, while maintaining an optimistic attitude because “the political regimes are still democracies.” There is no consensus among theorists concerning the question regarding if and how far “defective democracies” can be considered democracies. Croissant and Thiery (2000:95) emphasize and italicize “Defective democracies are democracies” [“Defekte Demokratien sind Demokratien”] (italics in original). Puhle (1999:121), in contrast, states that “there should be no doubt that these “defective democracies” are, on closer inspection, not democracies but types of authoritarian or dictatorial rule.” [“Es sollte jedoch kein Zweifel daran bleiben, daß diese ‘defekten Demokratien’ bei genauem Hinsehen keine Demokratien sind, sondern Formen autoritärer oder autoritär durchsetzter Herrschaft.”]. The question, then, is how many defects may a democracy have and still be considered a democracy? In other words, is a car without tires, engine, or steering wheel that is fit for the scrap yard—in short, lacking all parts that define it as a car—still a car, or just a chassis? How many parts can fail while it remains a car that is fit to drive: the tires, the engine, or only the steering wheel? We argue that if democracy is not established in all its constituent parts and lacks the “tires” or the “engine,” it is not a democracy, even if it has a “steering wheel”—such as universal suffrage. Moreover, a regime is only a democracy if it exists in reality rather than just written in a constitution, and if it is “fit to drive,” with an “engine” with working seals and “tires” without defective valves. “Scratches on the hood,”“defective air conditioning” or a “car radio that is out of order,” in contrast, do not limit the quality of democracy. The concept of “defective democracy” introduced by Wolfgang Merkel and Croissant (2000:5f) refers to an illiberal democracy without the rule of law. The analogy of “cold fire” applies here. Otherwise, if the adjective “defective” was conceived as being more neutral, then it would have no other meaning than “limited democracy,” remaining non-committal without further concretion. The meaning and restriction of the adjective “defective” depends also on the definition of democracy. A democracy defined in a maximalistic sense, as popular government, would aim at such a totality and no defect could be ignored, but in any existing regime it would constitute a huge defect in itself. However, a democracy defined in a minimalist way, as “contestation,” could also not afford a defect, because in that case even the most minimalist criteria could not be met. Consequently, only democracies that are not defined as minimalistic or maximalistic may show defects while at the same time remain democracies. By including the checks and balances in a system of rule of law and basic rights, the concept of “defective democracy,” reaches beyond Dahl's polyarchy criteria and is designed more systematically than other “democracies with adjectives.” Yet, only the “universal right to vote” is, in the end, denominated as defining and cannot be ignored as a driving characteristic of this concept. The other characteristics, also labeled as “partial regimes,” such as political participatory rights, civil liberty rights, horizontal accountability, and effective governmental power, are merely connotative and can be ignored for a typology such as democracy or nondemocracy. Merkel's concept has two advantages and four disadvantages, the advantages are: that it places higher requirements “in principle” on democracy than Schumpeter and Dahl; and it attempts to close the gap between the theoretical and the empirical. Because precise criteria are established, they are also operationalizable. The disadvantages are: that (1) the entire gray zone between authoritarianism and democracy is grasped by placing the adjective “democratic” in front of this gray zone; (2) the electoral regime is singled out as the only definitional criteria and, as such, raises even higher the requirement that manifests itself in the four further partial regimes; (3) areas such as state and civil society are excluded from the concept of democracy for which they are decisive, and while the reference to socioeconomic conditions functions as an alibi; and (4) because, in the end, only the dichotomy between authoritarian and democratic regimes remains, the world must appear as almost completely democratic, even if largely deficient, and consolidation of existing democracies stands in instead of transition. It should be noted that there are democracies that feature defects that do not threaten their existence and thus are not crucial to their definition, and only in this context does it reflect the concept of a “defective democracy.” From our point of view, these“defective democracies” only exist if no basic criteria are missing while not complying with some subcriteria. In any case, it is methodologically fatal to generalize the concept of “defective democracies” in a way that any regime not complying with all constitutive criteria of authoritarianism, and also not complying with those of democracy, is a priori subsumed under this concept. “Defective democracy” authors use this concept to explain the whole gray area between authoritarianism and democracy. However, many of the regimes resulting from the third wave of democratization are not yet democracies, but cannot be labeled authoritarian regimes either. Owing to their rigid structure there are no short-lived transitional phenomena that require their own label that reflects their typology as independent regime status. The position of the author differs from that taken by the supporters of “defective democracies”: in her view all basic, constitutive criteria (though not all subcriteria) have to be valid, with the term not covering the entire gray area between authoritarianism and democracy but rather the area directly adjacent to democracies. Hybrid regimes in contrast to “defective democracies” lack some basic criteria of democracy. On one end of the spectrum, it connects to “defective democracies,” while at the other it is linked to “competitive authoritarianism” (Levitsky and Way 2002:51–65), that at present seems to be the maximum attainable in the rent-seeking states of the Middle East, (cf., for example, Schlumberger 2006:100–113) and it is more heterogeneous than the regime types bordering on either side. The Concept of Regime Hybridity Except for those authors who further differentiate the gray area between authoritarianism and democracy, but are nevertheless in debt to a final terminology of the existing regime (Krennerich 1999:47), there exists another group of dissenters of the “diminished subtypes” thesis. These recognize mixed types or hybrids between authoritarianism and democracy. Although it died away as a “lonely call in the desert” within the democracies established by transition, the reference to “authoritarian enclaves” (Garretón 1991:47) now indicates that democratic and undemocratic partial regimes may well coexist in one single regime. From this point, although to a greater extent now than before, only a few authors advanced to assert the existence of hybrid regimes (Karl 1995:72–86; Malloy 1998:257; Diamond 2002:21; Erdmann 2002:323–342; Rüb 2002:93–119). However, this idea has so far only been conceptualized in a fragmented manner. The first person to articulate the idea of hybrid regimes was Karl (1995:72–86), who focused on Central America (without Costa Rica) in the mid-1990s, and proposed “some middle ‘hybrid’ terrain” (Karl 1995:73) that combined elements of authoritarianism and democracy, similar to the concept of “democradura.” Karl refers to the problem of a transition resulting in a regime that is governed both by oligarchic rule and a “new right,” or as we would call it, a regime change that does not involve an anti-oligarchic change of path dependency and, thus, cannot transcend a hybrid type. Karl, however, did not develop this idea further. Additional pioneering work was done by Rüb (2002:93–119), who developed a concept of hybrid regimes as independent and durable regime types, that, in contrast to Erdmann's (2002:323) concept, are universal rather than limited to certain regions. Rüb makes an effort to set defining minima of both authoritarian and democratic regimes and conceptually “encircles” the hybrid regime that lies in between. Rüb's defining minima are commensurate with those characteristics that Merkel and Croissant (2000:3–30) defined as merely connotative. Regarding the defining minima of authoritarianism, Rüb follows the characteristics established by Linz (limited political pluralism, political legitimizing through mentalities instead of ideologies, citizen passivity instead of mobilization, and “formally ill-defined limits”). Among these characteristics, Rüb emphasizes the “excessive executionalism” that is “reconciled” (“aufgehoben”) in the criteria's “formally ill-defined limits,” such as a weak horizontal accountability stemming from the separation of powers. According to Rüb, a hybrid regime is the result of a certain dichotomic combination of two defining characteristics: on the one hand, democracy (with its free and fair elections and rule of law) and, on the other hand, authoritarianism (with its “formally ill-defined” structure of rule and access to rule, which is not limited by law). Rüb's recognition of hybrid regimes as an independent regime type allows us to view transition to democracy as a contradictory event, advancing-retreating, longer-lasting, even an incomplete process, instead of a singular event. However, Rüb flatters his hybrid regime category by following a “binary logic of a typology” (Rüb 2002:114) and keeping the old dichotomy of authoritarianism and democracy. Although he objects to the idea of hybrid regimes being merely short-lived transitional phenomena, his definition remains teleological. To him, the road from authoritarianism to democracy is interrupted by a hybrid, but there is no branching out, with no byways or even parallel paths that might merge to form a very different kind of complex hybrid regime. It is only a blend of these old and new partial regimes that characterizes the new regime. In doing so, he misunderstands that hybridity may include indefinable partial regimes that are nondemocratic but at the same time non-authoritarian, which often do not evolve until the transition process itself begins. Instead the position of the author corresponds with the perceptions of the debate in the cultural sciences and humanities on hybridity (Brunner 1988; García Canclini 1990; Bronfen and Marius 1997:1–29; Schneider 1997:13–66), that is often ignored by political regime research and which has a less-dichotomic understanding of hybridity. From this debate, it can be assumed that the hybrid components of the concept do not necessarily remain unmodified, nor do they disappear when each meet during the transition. Moreover, they are not necessarily assimilated nor are they annulled in a synthesis. Antagonistic forces among previously contrary segments are instead “inscribed” and “negotiated,” evolving only into a mixture of contrary segments, but they themselves change and new mixed segments evolve into a new fusion resulting in hybrids within hybrids. This means that when discussing political regimes, the category of “hybrid” does not refer to the relation of form and content, that is, formal and substantial democracy, where democracy is merely the formal cover of a nondemocratic meaning. It refers instead to a blend of democratic and nondemocratic components. Even authoritarian regimes may feature democratic partial regimes (as elections in dictatorships) and democratic regimes may also feature nondemocratic partial regimes (as deficient separation of powers in presidential regimes). This concept implies a praxeological relevance: it makes a difference whether only minor defects of democracy without transition have to be sorted out during peace negotiations, or whether the entire hybrid regime has to be destroyed by peace negotiations. The negotiated compromise would in each case display a very different dimension. If nondemocratic partial regimes are too narrowly defined, that is equated with authoritarian partial regimes, and other nondemocratic partial regimes are overlooked, one could reach the pleasant conclusion that nondemocratic partial regimes are not even detectable. On the other hand, if nondemocratic partial regimes are defined too broadly all democratic results will fall into nondemocratic “holes.” If the violence of a regime is regarded as one of these nondemocratic “holes,” that is a nondemocratic veto factor that can override all democratic procedures, then its elimination alone will enable the restoration of all other democratic characteristics. Conversely, this means that any democratic possibility of action before this point never existed. If the polyarchy criteria are achieved, or if the electoral regime is regarded as a democratic “cumulus” outshining everything else, then in some cases not even peace would be necessary for establishing democracies. Unlike in previous years, hybrid regimes have been more evident recently, in particular in developing countries. Therefore, increasingly and correctly the term must be analyzed critically if it refers to the combination of authoritarian and democratic partial regimes. The examples of regime hybridity given in the literature are: Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines, in Southeast Asia (Jayasuriya and Rodan 2007:773–794); and Mozambique, Tanzania, Nigeria, Zambia, Djibouti, and Sierra Leone, in Subsaharan Africa (Bratton 2004:6). In Latin America, the author of this contribution verified regime hybridity not only for Colombia (Zinecker 2007:1082–1088), but also for El Salvador (Zinecker 2007:1089–1100), Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua (Zinecker 2006:150–163). The thesis outlined here, that partial regimes may be nondemocratic even when they are non-authoritarian, is based on the inclusion of civil society into the definition of a political regime. If civil society is political (Brysk 2000; Chandhoke 2001), then it is necessarily part of the political regime, and thus the political regime surpasses the state. The political regime includes the relationship that exists between politically active citizens without relating to the state, although the state always seeks a relationship with them. Taking O'Donnell and Schmitter (1986:73) from the standpoint of a definition, it is assumed that the characteristics of the participants, those with no access to government positions and want through their actions to first attain such access, are a component of the political regime. These actors are located in civil society (O'Donnell and Schmitter 1986:73). Hence, the political regime includes civil society where it looses its normative shell by defining it analytically and according to the logic of its realm (“bereichslogisch-analytisch”). Mainstream political science defines civil society either from the normative-logic of action perspective by identifying it as a collective “good guy,” or the normative-logic of realm perspective by defining it as a realm within society that is free per se of all “flawed” (non-civilian/nondemocratic) elements. We start from the analytical-logic of realm perspective, that is, an understanding of civil society that is not normatively fixed. According to this perspective, civil society is a normatively neutral, structural realm, which has solidified from the interactions of the actors who operate in that realm, which is opened-up analytically, that is, by a logical dissection. As a result of these considerations, civil society has to be open vis-à-vis the type of a regime, and can be democratic as well as nondemocratic. Most partial regimes extend into civil society or position themselves therein. Even though some partial regimes reflect “only” the democratic content of the state, this content can prevail only by extending itself into civil society: there is no effective governmental power as long as there are violent veto actors within civil society. Political liberties such as freedom of speech and organization are implemented within civil society. An electoral regime does not work if civil society makes no use of it. There is no rule of law when non-state actors of violence originate from civil society and massacre unarmed civilians without being penalized by criminal law. Horizontal accountability would be the only issue tackled by the state. Other partial regimes are directly rooted within civil society. In non-authoritarian regimes the greatest acts of violence emanate from non-state actors located within civil society. The civilizedness of a political regime is thus based on the civilizedness of civil society. Political inclusion beyond the electoral regime implies the autonomy of civil society from the state, the economy, and the family. Hybrid regimes constitute the central sphere in the gray area between authoritarianism and democracy. They include a large number of partial regimes that are democratic, authoritarian or neither. Such a multilayered and independent regime type can only be theoretically deduced if civil society—represented as a politically and not normatively designated sphere—is included in the regime term. These considerations can be arranged in the form of a checklist to determine democratic and nondemocratic partial regimes. Checklist for Determining Partial Regimes Regime reality and partial regimes can only be measured and compared using rigid rather than flexible criteria. For this purpose, the point of departure here is a checklist of universal and definition–constitutive basic criteria for democracy (A–E), which have to be verified for each country and which are themselves divided into subcriteria [from (a) to (h)]. In order to be able to verify them, the subcriteria are formulated as dichotomous questions, which demand a clear positive or negative answer. But even such a “formalization” based on Boolean Logic has its limits for it remains to be tested in the individual case what weight the subcriteria have in relation to others, as not all subcriteria have the same significance. Determining the regime according to this checklist goes beyond the criteria of polyarchy and evaluates regimes more critically than Polity-Dataset and Freedom House do. The checklist consists of the following basic criteria and subcriteria: Partial Regime A: (Non-) Civil Rule Exclusion of military rule partial regime and establishment of a civilian rule regime (where not fulfilled—authoritarian military regime): Is military rule replaced by civil rule, i.e., does the army stand under civilian control? Subcriteria: Has the army handed over political rule? Is the army completely subordinate to the direction of civil governmental power and are its prerogatives abolished? Has the “state of emergency” lost its common character? Has the army handed over responsibility for civil and/or domestic internal responsibilities (for example, police, judiciary, administration, infrastructure)? Are violent repressions by the state precluded? Have the connections between army members and violent non-state actors been dissolved? Have the army and police been purged of human rights violators and/or met with appropriate legal measures such that these institutions commit no further human rights abuses? Partial Regime B: (Non-) Polyarchy Exclusion of civilian authoritarian partial regime by the establishment of polyarchical regime segments and/or a democratically representative regime (where not fulfilled—civilian authoritarian regime): Is authoritarianism replaced by polyarchy? Subcriteria: Are the policy decisions of the government controlled by elected officials? Do regular free and fair elections take place, and are elections free from coercion of the constituency? Do all adults have the right and possibility to participate in these elections? Do all adults have the right and possibility to run for office in these elections? Do the citizens have the right and the possibility to express themselves freely—without the fear of a punishment—in all political matters, and to criticize the government, the regime, the socioeconomic order, and the prevailing ideology? Do the citizens have the right and the possibility to seek alternative sources of information; do such sources exist generally and are they protected by law? Do the citizens have the right and the possibility to establish independent organizations, including independent parties and interest groups?3 One can say that the above two partial regimes in their nondemocratic version lead to an authoritarian regime. However, the remaining three partial regimes in their nondemocratic version do not necessarily reflect authoritarianism, but may also stand for a non-authoritarian form of nondemocracy. Partial Regime C: (Non-) Rule of Law Exclusion of illiberal partial regime and/or partial regime not based on the rule of law (where not fulfilled—illiberal regime): Does the rule of law exist? Subcriteria: Are individual rights (right to life, physical integrity, protection against torture, and unjustified detention, etc.) upheld by the state? Does the state guarantee that third parties do not infringe these rights? Is the judiciary independent? Are there legal control mechanisms over the executive and legislature? Are the certainty of law, equal access to the law, and equal treatment by the judiciary, guaranteed? Partial Regime D: Civilizedness/Non-Civilizedness Exclusion of violent non-state partial regime through establishment of the state's monopoly over the use of force (where not fulfilled—violent regimes): Does the country exercise the monopoly over the use of force to the full extent of its territory and all its citizens so that non-state force is not prominent? Subcriteria: Do all essential institutions of the state extend over the country's entire territory? Have all powers of veto over political violence been annulled? Does the state guarantee public security? Does it prevent violent crime as a structural factor? Can politically alternative powers also realize their political rights without the danger of risking their lives due to violence beyond the control of the state? Partial Regime E: Political Exclusion/Inclusion Exclusion of politically exclusionary partial regime and enabling of the unlimited and non-violent participation of all—also alternative—constitutional political powers, that is, of a democratically participative regime and an autonomous civil society (where not fulfilled—exclusive regime): is political inclusion guaranteed? Subcriteria: Is it possible to have unhindered political participation, which goes beyond participation in elections and the mediation by political organizations? Is the party system inclusive, that is, does it represent the interests of all population groups, and are the parties able to successfully mediate between state and civil society? Are all demobilized guerrillas either in a party or political movement that is integrated into the political system? Do informal exclusion/inclusion mechanisms (clientalism, corruption, corporatism) no longer determine politics? Is the process of political de-oligarchization complete and oligarchical rule as the rule of a political minority excluded? Does the state function as a development agency for the successive reduction of marginalization? Does the state promote a plurality of property forms? Were political measures taken in order to begin economic de-oligarchization (anti-oligarchical agrarian reform, etc.) and market economy sociation? Item E of the checklist, political exclusion/inclusion, functions as a link to economic exclusion/inclusion (which is not included in the regime term) and thus the problem of socioeconomic transformation. In this model, democracy is a civilian ruled, non-authoritarian, polyarchic regime, a democratic-representative regime subject to the rule of law, civilizedness (non-violence) and inclusion. Adjectives such as “military rule,”“authoritarian,”“violent,” or “exclusionary” are not covered by the category of “democracy” as a form of “diminished subtype” because they are opposed to it. To complete the transition and consolidation of democracy, all basic criteria from A to E have to be complied with. If one or another subcriteria is not present, the model has to be reviewed to determine whether this puts the relevant definitory basic criteria into question or if it poses only a minor “defect” to the category “democracy.” It is only when basic criteria A and B are met, that an authoritarian regime can be considered to have lost its power and been replaced by, at least, a hybrid regime, and it is only then that a period of liberalization is implemented. The hybrid regime cannot be considered as replaced by a democratic regime until basic criteria C–E are implemented. It is only then that the period of transition is completed and a democratic regime established in its place. The totality of the regime character does not result from the mere addition of these five partial regimes but instead from their average. If A and/or B are not complied with, then the analysis of the other partial regimes is unnecessary because by definition they are irrelevant, for example, with a military dictatorship—authoritarian regime sui generis—or on the basis of One-Party Rule—in the style of Mexico under the PRI regime, for instance—largely democratic contents are excluded anyway. The basic criteria A–E are not necessarily successive sequences, but remain independent criteria. Within the ideal type of “liberalization” A and B overlap, within the ideal type “democratization” C–E overlap each other. The basic criterion D holds a special status here, as it is only relevant for regimes with inner—non-state—violence. The transitions between A, B, C, D, and E are in flux insofar as each previous main criteria opens the space for the following criteria. Basic criterion E, political inclusion, provides the space for participation and may lead to economic inclusion. The relevance of this checklist becomes obvious when applied to Colombia's contemporary regime. Regime Hybridity in Colombia Colombia together with Costa Rica and Venezuela undertook its transition during the second wave of democratization. In the case of Colombia, it was the replacement of General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla's comparatively “soft” and short-lived military dictatorship from 1953 until 1957, when civil rule that had formerly been typical of the country was restored. However, the change from 1956 until 1958, which became known as the transition to the Frente Nacional, can be regarded as only half completed because it brought military rule to an end but did not establish a democratic regime. The post-transition regime was based on a pact reached by the Liberal and the Conservative Party and known as the Frente Nacional. The pact determined for the next 16 years, from 1958 until 1974, the basic features of the system of government that can be summarized as follows: (1) The Frente Nacional replaced military rule and was characterized by civil rule. (2) The candidates for the presidency alternated between the Liberal and the Conservative Party. (3) The president, elected for a 4-year term, had to reach parity among the parties when appointing ministers, governors, or other important positions in the administration. Each party was entitled up to six ministers, while the 13th “neutral” member of the cabinet, the Minister of War, was appointed following the army's recommendation. According to the theory of democracy, the regulations mentioned above, in the vernacular “millimetrismo,” are usually associated with “consociational democracy,”“proportional democracy,” or “consensus democracy” in contrast to majority Westminster-type democracy. The Frente Nacional is an example of a very rigid consociational regime because: first, it was anchored in the 1886 constitution which was an initiative of the Conservative Party, that faced strong mistrust owing to its minority party position; and, secondly, because the minority party benefited from its superproportional chances of influence due to the parity and alternate principles associated with the pact. Moreover, it was a consociational regime combined with a presidential system of governance—an option that theorists of “consociational democracy” do not exclude, but consider less favorable. A general willingness to problem solving or orientation toward the common good that is crucial to “consociational democracy,” in the sense of being willed to search for the best solution together and, at least at first, deferring distributional issues, was not realized. As one would expect in such a case, this resulted in low efficiency and innovation, which in turn limited the regime's democratic drive. This led to a self-blockage of the regime, which hindered political competition and the control of non-state violence. Another reason why the consociational regime was handled in a very rigid way was that it represented only the elite and thus not all relevant segments, and not all (former) violent segments, as is assumed of consociational democracy because the guerrillas stayed out. For all these reasons, Colombia was over the long term a consociational regime, but not a consociational democracy because the transition to the Frente Nacional was based on an exclusive pact among the elites and got stuck between liberalization and democratization causing the consolidation of the “guerrilla versus state” conflict, which has to date not been resolved. The hybrid regime established as a result of this transition does not yet provide the necessary political space for peace. In the face of this dead end, a second transition was attempted in 1990/1991 when a Constituent Assembly drafted a new constitution. In contrast to the former transition, this second transition attempt was still-born remaining only an attempt that could not reach the level of a transition, not even a “half” one, although the new constitution, which can be considered as possibly the most democratic in Latin America today, created a space for the completion of the transition to democracy.4 This second attempt was launched after the mobilization of the middle and lower classes took place, and drug related violence (also referred to as “Narco-terrorism”) had spread and created many new actors of violence, who from the mid-1980s committed violent acts of terrorism, including the assassination of politicians. The transition realized by drafting a new constitution was supposed to channel mobilization “from below” and to facilitate a demobilization of the guerrillas and end drug-related violence. The primary mission of the 1991 Constitution was to put an end to the “bipartidismo”5 institutionalized by the Frente Nacional, even in its informal long-term form, and to improve the likelihood of the hybrid regime becoming a democracy. The transition attempt and the composition of the Constituent Assembly aroused such hopes6 and fostered democratization. These demands, however, were doomed to failure and the hybrid regime, which came in with the Frente Nacional, remained in place. Even though the 1991 constitution softened the “bipolar” model,7 which had been bequeathed from the Frente Nacional and further developed after 1974, it was not abandoned because the regime remained exclusive: on one hand, because it was not possible for a legal “third power” to stabilize itself as it encountered a massive counter-force and because against this backdrop as the most important oppositional force “legitimizing” power, the guerrillas, and their demands were not incorporated into the constituency and thus found few of their demands in the text of the new constitution; on the other hand because no constitutional basis was created to put paid to the exclusion of alternative forces, violence, and the corruption of the regime. The dilemma of the new constitution was to simultaneously provide a constitutional basis for the strengthening of the weak states as well as to break the exclusive character of the “bipartisan” style regimes, which were based on the predominance of parties that eventually became substitutes for the weak state. Faced with the task of having to achieve the strengthening of the state by democratic and not by authoritarian means the constituency—given its internal fragmentation—searched for a compromise “middle way,” which, however, only led to an inconsistent democratization and, in the end, did not reform the weak state and only slightly changed the hybridity of the regime. Once the new constitution was passed, despite the opening of a “window of opportunity” in the context of the constituent assembly, there was a return to a typical situation where participants come under pressure during decision-making processes, and the window opened by the new constitution effectively stopped having an impact, and all the former—what are in reality structural—limitations began once more to predominate over the freedom of action. Colombia's contemporary political regime is labeled as completely democratic by official sources such as the Colombian government, while the left categorizes the regime as “authoritarian with some fascist traits.”8 Among scholars, Colombia is referred to as “second in the Western Hemisphere only to the United States (…) in maintaining uninterruptedly a democratic, liberal, bourgeois political system” (Sanin 1989:XVI) and as a “constitutional dictatorship” (Pizarro 1993:143). Within the pertinent literature, the median evaluation of the country's political system is that of a “semi-democracy”—which in the author's opinion comes close to reality. However, the problem with the term “semi-democracy” is that it leaves little space for precision because what is meant by “half a democracy” and what characterizes the other, nondemocratic “half,” is not determined. In contrast, this can be precisely determined when using the concept of regime hybridity and the basic criteria discussed above. A—(Non-) Civil Rule Although the Colombian army since 1958 is basically subordinate to the civil government and although the military reforms instituted by the 1991 Constitution even requires that a civilian should be minister of defense, over the long term the army has not lost all its privileges. Many times, especially during peace processes, it has shown its independence by boycotting government policy. Since 2002, the incumbent President, Álvaro Uribe, modernized the army whose ranks he increased with 35,000 soldiers (that is, by 20%). This was augmented by 20,000 additional “farmer soldiers,” who were supposed to protect their immediate environment, and the extended net of informers (sapos), who were recruited by the army. Simultaneously, however, Uribe limited the autonomy of the army significantly (Pécaut 2003:80, 93), inter alia through employing ministers of defense who were inexperienced regarding matters of defense. Since the beginning of Uribe's presidency, the government and the army have been following a joint strategy so that the army has no need to boycott. The subcriteria (a) and (b) for the basic criterion “civil governance” are thus fulfilled. The state of emergency has lost its conventional character in as much as the arbitrary declaration of a quasi-permanent state of emergency is henceforth barred by the constitution. The legal provision of the Estado de Conmoción Interior (see note 4), which has been introduced by the new constitution, still implies a conventional character, although it repeals its scope for permanence, and so subcriteria (c) can also be considered as, more or less, fulfilled. Recently, in April 2004, the Colombian government declared for the first time in decades a permanent security presence in every municipality (Embassy of Colombia, Washington, USA 2007:1). Today, however, the army performs many of the functions of the badly trained police, which is not present in some regions of the country.9 For many citizens, the military is the only contact with the government. The National Police are responsible for internal law enforcement and are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defense. Under the government of Álvaro Uribe, many important functions, which were even previously administered by the police, were transferred to the army. Subcriteria (d) is, on this basis, unfulfilled. Extrajudicial killings attributed to the army increased by 90% between the 1996–2002 and 2002–2006 period, from an annual average of 119–227 (Bustamante and Chaskel 2008:79). They happened in almost all 32 departments and targeted community leaders above all. Subcriteria (e) is, then, unfulfilled. In most cases, the human rights abuses were initiated by members of the army in cooperation with, or associated with, the paramilitares (paramilitary organizations). In 1999, a 21-page list proved that the army and the paramilitary remained in contact with each other.10 Furthermore, the Cooperativas Comunitarias de Vigilancia Rural (CONVIVIR), the ‘limpieza social’ (social cleansing) and the farmers' militias and informant networks (red de cooperantes, which about 10% of the population belong to) initiated by the current president Alvaro Uribe were, or are, demonstrably supported by the army and police, so that the fulfillment of subcriteria (f) also remains in question. The same also applies to subcriteria (g) because according to the constitution, the army assumes the tasks of the civil judiciary even in “normal” times, not to mention their privileges during a state of emergency. Military jurisdiction is not limited to military offenses but also applies to all crimes committed by members of the military while on duty. Thus, a criminal conviction of soldiers and police by civil jurisdiction can be avoided even in cases of human rights abuses. The security forces always have an extraordinarily strong influence for civilian rule, especially the army, but in particular since the implementation of the strategy for democratic security by the Uribe government in 2003. However, the tendency toward the militarization of the country is not evidence of military rule or any “putschist” ambitions to autonomy by the army against the civil powers. They are rather implemented in unison with civil rule, which in itself militarizes. In other words, even though, or because, the army has encroached on important areas of police and judiciary, especially under President Uribe, the army so far does not need military rule to realize its ambitions. Four of seven regime subsegments are thus nondemocratic, some of which are authoritarian, that the army has to account for. However, these regime segments are still not even close to constituting a military rule, because they have integrated well into civil rule. Here the previously mentioned case occurs, that some subcriteria [in this case, (a)–(c)] have greater weight than the others [that is, (d)–(g)]. However, this does not rule out that the basic regime criteria “civil rule” (especially under President Uribe) has increasingly adopted features of military rule. B—(Non-) Polyarchy Colombia is a classic case of a delegative system that does not stand for a representative democracy—if it was a democracy then O'Donnell's term “delegative democracy” would be appropriate. Such a system is defined by the fact that the president (and Uribe practices this par excellence) governs at his own discretion without other powers or the population having any real control over him. Horizontal accountability and checks and balances cannot function under the currently existing pressure of the president (Trujillo 2007). Subcriteria (a) thus does not work. In addition, the cooperation of army and paramilitaries are being flanked by the cooperation of politicians, including ministers and members of congress, with the paramilitaries: at present, the judiciary has determined that more than 20% of congressional representatives have possibly been corrupted by the paramilitaries. In this context, the cousin of the president, senator and former election campaign manager Mario Uribe, has also been arrested. Thirty-one politicians are already in prison. Concerning subcriteria (b)–(d), in Colombia, secret ballot elections were first held in 1853, much earlier than in many European countries. Their legitimacy was repeatedly questioned during the nineteenth century, when both the Liberals and Conservatives “corrected” the outcome in civil wars. In 1936, all men were granted suffrage, with property and literacy not a precondition for voting. Women were granted the vote in 1954, when suffrage became universal. During the dictatorship of General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla between 1953 and 1957, no elections took place. In 1958, elections were held for the first time after the Rojas Pinilla regime. However, the Frente Nacional's consociational system, characterized by alternation and parity, did not allow free electoral competition. In the context of the Frente Nacional, the two-party system was condensed effectively to a one-party-system that did not admit other parties at the same level as the traditional ones. Article 120 of the 1968 constitutional reform meant that the parity-rule was fixed as a “permanent coalition” (Latorre Rueda 1986:126) for the cabinet and administrators down to the local level and was extended beyond 1974–1978. From then on, it became not only a transitory but a constitutional principle, so that political competition was constitutionally blocked. Thus, the prolongation of the consociational system of the Frente Nacional in a narrow sense was anchored in a Frente Nacional in a wider sense because contrary to the original agreement some of its rules remained, such as the rule that the party which lost the election should have an equal share in government and its offices. As late as 1974, the president was obliged to fill his cabinet with members of the losing party. The Frente Nacional in a wider sense lasted from 1974 until 1986, when President Virgilio Barco implemented a “government-opposition” scheme by granting the minority Conservative Party a clear opposition role. Such action established political competition at least among the two traditional parties. As we have seen, the Frente Nacional, both in its narrow and wider definition, was not a democratic representative regime because it did not comply with the decisive criteria of a polyarchy. Elections degenerated into referenda on decisions that had already been made. The exclusive “bipartidismo” of Liberals and Conservatives had effects that lasted beyond that period, and became an informal and hegemonic institution.11 Mayors and governors were not elected by the people until 1988 and 1991, respectively. However, since the elections for constituents in 1991, the fundamental fulfillment of subcriteria (b)–(d) can take place, also if, in some municipalities, it was not even possible to hold elections between 1997 and 2000. Moreover, with the recent presidential elections in 2006 there appeared a more profound change in the party system and therefore in the representative system in Colombia. No longer is there an exclusive “bipartisanism” of the two traditional parties—the Liberal and Conservative parties—accompanied by an immense glut of smaller parties: what had been of concern for the small parties is the characteristic oversupply and the “transfugismo” limited by law—from 321 listed in 2002 only 20 remain in 2006. In the meantime, the two traditional parties—Liberal and Conservative—have become almost insignificant. Uribe won the elections with the Primero Colombia coalition, a group of dissident parties from the liberal party (formerly Uribe's party), the conservative party, regional groups close to the paramilitaries, as well as those belonging to the Christian democrats. Uribe won with 62% of the votes. The second strongest candidate in these elections was Carlos Gaviria from the left democratic Polo Democrático Alternativo with 22%. Finally, there is a tendency toward a new “bipartisanism” with the followers of Uribe, on the one hand, and the left democrats, on the other hand. If the constitutional court agrees to Uribe's amendments to the constitution, it will allow him a second re-election and the decision will be between Uribe and the Polo candidate. Such a constellation of parties is new in Colombia. On one side, there appears to be a monopolization of power around the person of Uribe, while on the other side, the traditional “bipartisanism” has been forced open by an enormously strong and lawful Left. However, the 2006 elections still took place with a voter non-participation rate of 55%. The reason for this is the parties lack representative authority, clientelism, and the inability of the constituency to control their representatives. Lastly, the principle of equality is challenged by the continuous threat of physical violence. Subcriteria (e)–(g) are placed into question by violence (cf. D-(Non-)Civilizedness)—freedom of opinion, information, press, and organization are not guaranteed de facto, but de jure. Journalists are murdered, threatened, and kidnapped, or submit to self-censorship due to fear of violence. This applies also to the general populace who prefer not to engage politically out of fear for their lives. Finally, sapos were established by the government in the name of unofficial public security but which threaten the private sphere and liberal rights of the population. This shows that democratic representation is hindered and that four of seven subcriteria for polyarchy are not fulfilled, for example, (a) (e), (f) (g) remaining vulnerable. This partial regime is in itself a hybrid. Authoritarian subcriteria exist too, but not authoritarianism as regime type, because neither is the majority of the subcriteria authoritarian, nor is a single one so relevant that it holds a veto power against the others. C—(Non-) Rule of Law During the Frente Nacional period, there was no independent judiciary. It is not fully independent now, even after the enactment of the 1991 Constitution. The Judiciary and the legislative branch of government were split into equal parts among Liberals and Conservatives during the Frente Nacional. Judges were appointed for life, and owing to a lack of control mechanisms, the judiciary itself selected its members. This was exercised through “judicial clientelism,” tied to party membership, with family or friends at the center of the selection process. Until the early 1990s, the judiciary remained financially dependent on the executive because it did not have financial autonomy. Moreover, its structure and territorial distribution was determined by the executive. The 1991, Constitution changed this by assigning the selection to the Consejo Superior de la Judicatura, a formally independent board but with limited scope. The Consejo presents the list of judges to be elected, but the Constitutional Court judges are elected from lists compiled by the President, the Supreme Court, and the State Council. The Constitutional Court, introduced by the 1991 Constitution, took its duty to control the legislative and executive branch of government very seriously. This led both the legislative and the executive branch of government to feel threatened and to accuse the Council of a transgression of competence and “judicial activism” (Gaviria Díaz 2000). Additional institutions for the protection of basic rights, among them individual defensive rights, were created by introducing the Ministry of the Interior, the Court of Auditors, the General Bar, the Attorney General, and the Ombudsman. In order to further protect basic rights, the “acción de tutela”12 was also introduced, which strengthened the judiciary's power by allowing citizens to sue for their rights using normal legal processes. In short, the 1991 Constitution improved considerably the independence of the judiciary. Today, however, in the face of the new constitution and its democratic norms, constitutional law and constitutional reality diverge significantly. On the one hand, the state restricts the rule of law by imposing a state of emergency, enacting security decrees and by expanding military jurisdiction. On the other hand, informal systems of laws and norms—established and even formalized by non-state actors within the territories that they control—collide with and rival those of the state. They also intermingle causing uncertainty especially among the rural population regarding which system is responsible for addressing their legal grievances. In the early 1980s, the state changed from a rather “legal” means of repression to state crime. It has been shown that state agents, members of the army and police, committed hundreds of serious human rights abuses (politically motivated murder, disappearances, massacres, torture) without a large number being convicted.13 Of the extra judicial executions by the army, only 1% have been punished criminally. (Bustamante and Chaskel 2008:79) Also, arrests without warrant continue to take place repeatedly. Thus subcriterion (a) is placed in question. The latter is valid also for subcriterion (b) in view of the encroachments of the FARC, the ELN, and the non-demilitarized paramilitaries, which the state is unable to prevent. The independence of the judiciary is strongly compromised due to the fact that the highest court of justice, which leads accusations against the politicians (the latter accused of corruption involving the paramilitaries), is repeatedly defamed and intimidated by Uribe. The same applies to the constitutional court. In May 2006, it ruled as unconstitutional central aspects of the “Law for Justice and Peace,” which aimed making demobilized paramilitaries criminally accountable. It required full confessions, recourse to the perpetrators for compensation of property, etc., minimum punishments of fiveyears jail and denied the offenses political status. Uribe said he accepted the judgment, although he issued presidential decrees that are in open contradiction to these rulings. Therefore subcriteria (c) and (d) are not fulfilled. According to the Ministry of Justice, the courts need approximately 9.2 years to process the backlog of cases pending. The Judiciary's budget in 2000 is only 1.43% of the national budget, compared with the Defence Ministry's budget of 4%.14 Although access to the judiciary is equal according to the constitution, the expense of using it, the lack of efficiency and corruption reduces people's trust in it. Owing to a lack of resources and excessive demand, as well as a lack of training and the efficiency of the judicial institutions, well over 90% of the cases go unpunished.15 Often impunity is a sign of immunity, particularly in cases where public servants or drug dealers, accountable for human rights abuses or other offences, are not called to account. What is more, the question of impunity only accounts for the relationship between complaints and convictions not the number of crimes and convictions. It is unknown how many offenses go unreported due to fear or a lack of trust. Such a high level of impunity calls into question the rule of law. Nine out of 10 criminal law cases are blocked because there is no defense lawyer. This is also true for homicide cases (Montoya Moncada 1997). Many lawyers are threatened with assassination or have been murdered, including a number of Justice Ministers, so that it is often fear that prevents criminal law cases from being heard. Lawyers are more highly threatened by violence proportionally than any other section of the population, which is why they are super-proportionally armed (Rubio 1999:213f). Judges follow the principle of “jueces sin rostro,” which means that judges cover their faces when implementing justice. The country continued implementing a new code of oral accusatorial-style criminal procedure, which was scheduled to be in place nationwide by 2008. The code replaced the inquisitorial system whereby a person was detained pending an investigation that involved the formal acceptance of evidence, without an actual trial. But criminal procedure within the military justice system includes elements of the inquisitorial system. All of these aspects speak for the non-fulfillment of subcriterion (e). Within these primary criteria all subcriteria remain unfulfilled with the exception of (a). The biggest gap that exists so far between norm and reality on our checklist has to do with the rule of law, which transition researchers have increasingly defined as a criterion for democracy. Private justice seeks to substitute lawlessness caused by the state. The reality in Colombia is that there is no rule of law and its regime is illiberal. D—(Non-) Civilizedness There is no doubt that Colombia's political regime is violent and not civilized. The state is not yet present in all regions of the country, particularly not in the south. For this reason subcriterion (a) is not fulfilled. The two guerrilla groups, FARC and ELN, are still active. An armistice exists between the government and the paramilitaries since December 2002 and between 2003 and 2006, 31,671 paramilitaries were demobilized, nevertheless during the same period the paramilitaries are responsible for 3,907 murders in the civilian population. Subcriterion (b) is thus also not fulfilled. The state is one violent pole of conflict and crosses the borders that have been set by humanitarian international law for the protection of the civilian population in the same way as the paramilitares and the guerrillas do but not with the same means and not to such an extent. As a result, the state's failure as a monopolist of legitimate force and violence makes it accountable by default for the non-politically intended homicides of non-state actors. Civil society is composed of a mixture of non-state actors of violence (guerrillas, paramilitares, urban militias, rural autodefensas, sicarios, and protagonists of social cleansing gangs). The part of civil society that is not fighting but is suffering under the violence has not autonomized itself in a way that it could become a peacemaking agent for the entire civil society. These all speak for the non-fulfillment of subcriteria (c) and (d). Colombia was for a long time the most violent country in Latin America, ranking second worldwide (Montenegro and Posada 2001:1). ‘Plomonía,’ death caused by being shot, is the most common cause of death among men between 15 and 45 years of age in Colombia, with one person dying of violence every 15minutes. More than two million displaced people are currently trying to escape violence—Colombia takes second place here after Sudan—which costs the state the equivalent of 11.4% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Private households additionally spend 2% of GDP in safety measures. Private investment decreased by 65% due to the violence, which in 1999 equaled 4.1% of GDP. The homicide rate (since 1991) as well as the rate of kidnapping (since 2001) decreased sharply, yet still in 2006 Colombia ranked third in Latin American for the level of violence with 39 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. From 2002 to 2006, 12,547 persons were killed in the context of political violence (Elementos de Coyuntura Colombiana 2007). The victims were mainly mayors, trade unionists, and teachers, which indicates that subcriterion (e) is not fulfilled. Therefore, in the partial regime civilizedness, no single subcriterion is fulfilled. The violence of the Colombian regime shows only some authoritarian features for which the state can be held accountable. That is why the violence has to be considered a particularly serious and autonomous partial regime, being nondemocratic as well as non-authoritarian. E—Political Exclusion/Inclusion The exclusionary character of Colombia's political regime is rooted in the pact that founded the Frente Nacional, and which was superseded by an exclusive pact among the elite that did not replace oligarchic rule but instead restored it. Subcriterion (a) is given de jure but not de facto, however, because violence prevents unhindered participation in elections. In hindsight, subcriterion (b) was for a long time prevented from prevailing by the “old” bipartisanism and “third” legal powers could not be established at the time. Recently, since the relative success of the Polo in the 2006 elections, this has changed although there are always weaknesses evident in the mediation between civil society and the state. Criterion (c) is fulfilled only to the extent that (some) guerrillas are demobilized. Concerning the demobilization of paramilitaries one cannot yet call it achieved. The Frente Nacional succeeded in depoliticizing society by restricting competition to a struggle for offices and influence between the two traditional parties (Hoskin 1998:54). However, the traditional parties were unable to mobilize the people or to mediate between society and the state, and both led to a decline and de-institutionalization of political participation (Santamaría and Silva Luján 1984:38), even though the text of the 1991 Constitution focuses on the ideal of a participatory democracy. Since then, the characteristics of exclusion are no longer rooted in authoritarian election mechanisms or undemocratic constitutional paragraphs, but in establishing (informal) political prefigurations, such as: the inability of the party system to democratically organize and to successfully mediate between state and civil society; and exclusionary informal patterns of politics, such as clientelism and corruption. For this reason, subcriterion (d) is not fulfilled. Exclusion is also fueled by the fact that “de-oligarchization” has yet to be completed in Colombia. Today a transformation is still going on from the traditional coffee-oligarchy toward a new type of economic elite. Rent-determined modes of appropriation, which are not only symptomatic of one branch of trade—coffee, petroleum, and coal, but also emeralds, nickel, flowers and drugs—are being complemented by capital-determined industrial production, including joint ventures with US enterprises as well as domestic oligopoly capital groups. Economically the oligarchic model has not been completely broken, with the economic elites reaching beyond it. As a whole, it is not an oligarchy anymore, neither is it a state class nor a bourgeoisie, but it features oligarchic components, whether in livestock farming or the coffee sector. Politically, today's excessive presidentialism symbolizes the persistence of oligarchic rule (Zinecker 2007:210–238). In Colombia, the state is “relatively fragmented and penetrable by private interests” (Hartlyn 1985:125), so that there are connections between the state and the economic elite, which has been equated to that of a “catholic marriage” (Palacios 1983:307). The fulfillment of subcriteria (e)–(h) is therefore impossible. In this partial regime only, the single criterion (b) can be considered as fulfilled—and this only recently. Owing to the Frente Nacional's informal long-term effects that restored the oligarchic elite in its political sense, as well as not ending the “de-oligarchization” of its economic dimension, the Colombian regime is considered to be exclusive. “De-authoritarianization” alone without a complete “de-oligarchization” does not lead to democracy. “De-oligarchization” represents the nexus between political inclusion, that is included in the definition of the political regime, and economic inclusion, which is not included in the definition of the political regime, but is a precondition for the completion of transition. Summary of Colombia's Partial Regimes In Colombia's contemporary political regime, basic criterion A is complied with especially in the case of four decisive subcriteria. It is a regime under civil rule featuring some authoritarian characteristics, some of which the army has to account for, but which have not yet clustered into military–authoritarian enclaves, and even less, to military rule. Within basic criteria B many subsegments are not polyarchic. Polyarchy is vulnerable when citizens' lives are at risk when making use of political alternatives. As this only originates in small measure from the state, the partial regime cannot be labeled as authoritarian. This basic criterion is “in itself” hybrid and is thus reason why it is only partially fulfilled. Basic criterion C is almost entirely unfulfilled, so that an illiberal regime exists, since it does not comply with the rule of law. Basic criteria D is not guaranteed at all, and therefore the regime can be considered as non-civilized. Finally, basic criterion E is essentially not achieved and refers to a politically exclusive regime. If one regards only the “damage” of the “universal suffrage” criteria as an unavoidable criteria of democracy, or, as such an important defect that democracy is challenged, as do the authors of the concept of “defective democracy,” then Colombia could be considered a democracy since there is an electoral regime in place. Understanding any definition of democracy that goes beyond this one is particularly problematic in this case because the mentioned shortfalls are merely connotative rather than crucial for a definition of democracy. The significance and dimension of the nondemocratic partial regimes listed above cast doubt that they are merely negligible defects that only diminish democracy but do not challenge it. Colombia's regime represents an almost classic hybrid regime because, although under civil rule, it is an illiberal regime owing to its lack of the rule of law and some polyarchy characteristics that are not guaranteed. Moreover, the army accounts for some of the violence and exclusive partial regimes that have authoritarian features. This entanglement of democratic and nondemocratic partial regimes can be illustrated using a fictitious example from everyday Colombian life. Pablo García in Putumayo is repeatedly assured by his government and other various indices of democracy that he lives in a “real” democracy. On the one hand, he has more freedom than his father under General Rojas Pinilla's military dictatorship, but on the other hand there is a hitch whenever he wants to test his political freedom. Civilians manage the country's public policy, and the political fate of his village is also in the hands of civilians. Yet this changes whenever a state of emergency is declared or the mayor feels threatened by the guerrillas, and/or from the failed demobilization of the paramilitares, and has fled. Then it is the men in uniforms that dominate public offices. Pablo's only source of income is the coca-fields he tends and he has got used to the army helicopters and the spraying of pesticides over his fields. Still, he could point out in an election that he prefers a president that prohibits the army from spraying his field. In fact, he may choose among many parties. Maybe he is lucky, maybe the ballot box is not far and he will not need to take a bus, whose ticket costs more than his daily earnings. Having arrived safely at the polling station, he carefully considers whether to vote for another party other than the traditional ones because there is a good chance that its candidates will not survive if it becomes too strong. If he himself became active in one of these parties, the paramilitares might consider him a sympathizer with the guerrillas, which in turn would augur badly for him. In case his sympathy is with one of the traditional parties and should he even wish to be in permanent contact, he would be best advised to proceed in the old clientelistic manner of offering a favor to one or the other. In no case should he expect continuous activity within the party, participating as an equal, emancipated member on a regular basis. Of course Pablo may appeal to the judiciary for criminal prosecution when threatened by the paramilitares, guerrillas, or criminals. However, he has to be absolutely aware of the fact that his case will either take years before it comes to court or else may result in impunity for the accused. If Pablo was able to read, if journalists were not afraid of publishing the truth, if all newspapers—including the alternative ones—reached his village, and finally if Pablo could spare the money for them, then he would enjoy freedom of information. Fortunately, he has access to television—thanks to illegally drawing power from the grid—so he is spared from learning that he is not surrounded by democracy. Needless to say that Pablo could join the guerrillas if he lost his means of existence, the coca-field. At least he can make a living there. In that case, he would have the same partial but opposite experience of being told that everything, absolutely everything surrounding him was the opposite of democracy. They would explain that asking for democratic capacity of action was useless, as the entire regime was authoritarian, if not fascist. That irritates Pablo because he can choose among different political options, be elected, organize, obtain alternative information without fear of punishment—at least from the state—express himself on all political issues etc., if there was not this hitch in it… and the story would start all over. Translated into the deadpan language of democratization research, Pablo's real ambivalent political context and his problem of not being able to side with the government's position (that the Colombian regime is entirely democratic), nor with the guerrillas' position (of it being entirely nondemocratic), reflects a real regime phenomenon. This can be captured best with the term “hybrid.” The author assumes that regime hybridity is a phenomenon that not only becomes increasingly continuous but also universal in the southern and Eastern countries in transition, which are marked by rent economies. Owing to the constraints of an article such as this, the author is unable to provide any empirical evidence here, but the theoretical connection between a rent economy and regime hybridity is given below. Democracy and Development Rent economies are based upon rents and rents can be defined as the surplus allocated by the state (classes), which is different from the profit that is generated from free business competition and constitutes sociation by the market. It is a monopolistic extra gain that must not be used for the expansion of production because it would then cause an increase in supply and thus a decrease of prices. In contrast to market economies, there is marginal labor in rent economies that have the physical conditions to produce more than they need for their own survival and that of their families, but nevertheless do not produce more owing to a lack of the means of production, which in most cases is land. A weak economic value of work leads to a low level of real wages and low mass income, which in turn implies little incentive for investment and innovation and makes self-supporting capitalist growth impossible. In contrast, the “thoroughly capitalized” economy based upon profit—i.e., sociated by the market—fosters the production of investment goods and a dynamic equilibrium between employers and employees because both “classes” can achieve an acceptable level of satisfaction of their immediate interests only if the other side defends successfully their interests. By making investments and producing locally the relevant parts of the equipment needed for production, entrepreneurs in “thoroughly capitalized” societies create a demand for labor. This leads to scarcity of labor and wage-drift. The capitalist mechanism of growth without a solution to the problem of marginality is not applicable to under-developed countries, in spite of economic liberalization because it leads neither to wage-drift nor to a strengthening of the bargaining position of the population on a low income that continues well beyond the transition (Elsenhans 1994:104–110). Democratization is achievable in rent economies as well, but as the author has shown, only as far as a hybrid regime allows it to happen. The establishment of fully-fledged democracies in developing countries, such as Costa Rica, is also evidence that the rent economy was opened up by capitalist functional conditions, with a weak oligarchy replaced by a relatively strong bourgeoisie. While partial regimes of civil rule and polyarchy are in principle also achievable in rent economies, this is not the case with the other partial regimes or constitutive criteria for democracy: civilizedness, rule of law and inclusion. It is specifically those partial regimes that are not necessarily authoritarian in their nondemocratic version that require an extensive transformation from a rent economy to sociation by the market, and consequently to a market economy, for their full democratic implementation. The tendency to civilizedness is only achieved through empowerment of labor and thus “thorough capitalization,” because if economic investment and labor were not in demand the marginalized have a greater tendency, according to the argument of opportunity costs, to use violence as a substitute to access the market. There is no rule of law when access to the judiciary is denied to a large segment of the population that cannot assert their rights due to economic marginalization. Political inclusion without economic inclusion, which itself is essential to “thorough capitalization,” is attainable only under the exceptional circumstances of a revolution or the climax of a transition. Then it can even function as a lever for achieving economic transformation. Such unique circumstances must be used if the transition is to go beyond a hybrid regime to democracy. Only in such cases may political transition—at least for the time being—anticipate economically unrealized sociation. The lower classes, who have pushed the democratization process to its climax by their intervention, are then able to use this participation in political institutionalization, in order to take care of their own inclusion—by the use of the electoral system. However, if political inclusion is to last beyond the climax of transition, it has to be immediately substantiated by economic inclusion through a transformation to a market economy. At the point when a transition climax is reached, there is a unique “window of opportunity” when political inclusion and socio-economic transformation have to interlock for at least one of the processes to succeed. This means that the process of transformation will most probably proceed beyond that of the transition. Ultimately, transition is part of development. So far, economic liberalization in most transition and developing countries has not reduced rents in a relevant manner nor has it led to a complete “de-oligarchization” of society. It could even lead to a “re-oligarchization” as in El Salvador and Guatemala, or leave existing oligarchic segments intact as in Colombia. The nexus between economic and political exclusion is closer in oligarchic rent economies than in those that are non-oligarchic, because oligarchy as the rule of a few persons or families combines an economic and a political dimension. In an economic sense it means the control of a country's means of production on the basis of land ownership. In its political dimension, which is equivalent to and deduced from the economic dimension, oligarchy represents the opposite of mass politics and the control of the state by the same minority that is also in charge of the country economically. The anticipation of economically non-existent sociation by markets through political transition in oligarchic rent economies encounters limits that are even more narrow than in rent economies that are not oligarchic. In other words, transition and transformation have to unite more closely, and perhaps at an earlier stage, in order for both to succeed. Both Crawford Macpherson (1977) and Amartya Sen (1999), independently of each other, tried to answer the question of how transition and transformation can be linked with each other. Both are interested in the interrelation of democracy/democratization (transition) and development (transformation) and in making them meaningful to each other. Moreover, both perceive socioeconomic development as not inherent in the political regime. Macpherson (1977) developed a “zipper principle,” according to which successive, reciprocal, and incomplete alternations may take place on the political as well as on the socioeconomic level and may promote change on other levels, whereas emancipatory “cumuli” may lock in non-emancipatory “notches,” just like a zipper does. In contrast, Armatya Sen developed a “lever principle,” according to which the sequence of “fit for democracy,” exemplified by the Western model for the twentieth century, has to be reversed to “fit through democracy” in developing countries.16 Sen emphasizes the “instrumental relevance” of democracy as a political incentive for the accountability of governments and its “constructive role” in the generation of values and the understanding of needs, rights and duties. As democracy was a “demanding system” and at the same time featured a “protective function,” it was especially relevant to the poor and their empowerment because the dynamic equilibrium of demand and supply could be established through an empowerment of the lower classes in the long term. According to Sen (1999:13), “people in economic need also need a political voice. Democracy is not a luxury that can await the arrival of general prosperity.” While Macpherson refers more strongly to the simultaneity of democratization and development, Sen states that the non-simultaneity of both processes in developed as well as in developing countries is the forerunner-function to democracy and democratization. Sen's “lever principle” and Macpherson's “zipper principle” can be combined with each other. From Sen one could adopt the idea that democracy is feasible despite poverty (marginality) and is useful to its elimination. Nevertheless, skepticism remains whether democracy can be completely established and durable in the long run if poverty as a constitutive feature of the economy is not dispelled. Macpherson is inspiring due to the fact that, in his concept, the completion of one change is not the precondition for the completion of another change, but both processes may take place in a parallel way with temporary advantages of one or the other process, so that the respective advantage of one process may be fruitfully used to overcome a disadvantage within the other change. Sen's “lever principle” also works within Macpherson's “zipper principle,” right at its beginning. The first protruding “spike” of the zipper is democratic progress, which locks in the first “notch” of the socioeconomic development regress. The combination of political and economic participation constitutes the zip by which the zipper could be closed. So far there is no case of the third wave of democratization that could prove empirically that the hybrid-regimes established as a result of democratization could lead themselves to democracy and to a market economy by following the “zipper” or “lever principle,” because the lower classes would not let the empowerment they fought for by using the political “lever” of democratization, and which they now use to fight for the containment of marginality, be taken away. If the “lever principle” works, it is only in the case of the very rare “windows of opportunity” of a transition climax that is usually very short-lived, and, as such, optimism about it is dampened. If the empowerment of the lower classes achieved during the transition is not used successfully at the point of transition climax, empowerment may be lost, compensated by social frustrations, which might erupt in alternative paths of democratization or de-democratization. The problem, then, is not that developing countries can reach the same regime status as developed countries only in a different way owing to their succession problem, that is, their catch-up dilemma, which appears with all modernization attempts after the success of the industrial and democratic revolution (Wehler 1975:48). The question is rather under which conditions they are able to reach it at all. It seems that instead of reaching the same result by a alternative path they reach an altogether different and worse result. While the developing countries' situation of catching up socioeconomically intensifies then, just like Zeno's paradox, the leeway for political regimes between both regions has decreased, even though in most cases of developing countries only regime hybridity could be achieved. Conclusions This paper is aware that after an initial period of “pioneer work” recent transition studies have placed at the center of the debate the idea of a gray area between authoritarianism and democracy. The concepts of “defective democracy” and “regime hybridity” are the most fruitful in terms of theory. In a critical discussion of both concepts, some limits became obvious: the prevalence of “defective democracy” is far lower than its authors suppose because the gray area is dominated by hybrid regimes. This can only be deduced when democracy's subsets are connected to more demanding criteria than the categories used by mainstream transition researchers, such as those linked to Robert Dahl (1989), and the advocates of both the “defective democracy” concept as well as regime hybridity as it has been used until recently. A more rigorous definition of democracy that remains well within the political frame can emerge only if civil society is included in the regime terminology beside the state. The concept of regime hybridity adopted in this paper has decisively changed. It is important to further differentiate hybrid regimes into further segments. In contrast to the discussion of regime hybridity, it was asserted that hybrid regimes do not only feature democratic and authoritarian partial regimes, but also nondemocratic partial regimes that are at the same time non-authoritarian. While the partial regimes of civil rule and polyarchy are, by and large, present in hybrid regimes, the partial regimes of rule of law, inclusion and civilizedness (if there was violence before) are usually not. The democratization of these partial regimes requires the socioeconomic transformation from a rent economy to an economy sociated by market. Yet, regime hybridity can also be replaced by democracy in developing countries, where rent economies predominate, if political transition and socioeconomic transformation are interlocked by a combined “lever” (Sen) and “zipper principle” (Macpherson). It was pointed out that transition studies are limited if they are not linked to development theory. The analysis of hybrid regimes demonstrates that transition will only succeed up to a certain point, if it is not combined with economic transformation. The eclecticism of the model associated with this is willingly accepted—even resisting the temptation of its simple elegance, because in this way the model remains more realistic and its practical relevance is increased. Two perspectives of transition studies stand out. Even if a narrow procedural concept of democracy and a minimalist, closed model of transition is preferred, transition studies and development theory are closely associated and tend to cross-fertilize each other. According to these assumptions, transition does not just happen within a socioeconomic vacuum, and transition studies are in any case contextually linked to development studies. If, on the other hand, one applies a more demanding concept of democracy and an open model of transition, including the possibility of regress, as this paper suggests, then the notion of transition (and not only consolidation) as a part of development, and of transition studies as a field of investigation that overlaps with development theory, is self-evident. If area studies stated a factual universalization of incomplete transitions and an increasing continuation of the gray area between authoritarianism and democracy in developing countries, this raises the question of their implications for transition studies. In the author's model, the stronger possibility of transitions stagnating, as well as the differentiation of their—not necessarily—positive results, are regarded as relatively stable and deliver an immense amount of food for the debate on transitions. However, if one takes transition studies seriously regarding the maxim that it is still orientated toward a fast and successful institutionalization of democracy, then they have become obsolete, because since that moment, when the changes have congealed in a new structure, no specific field of “transition” research would be required for its analysis. That would really mean the “end of the transition paradigm” (Carothers 2002:5–21). The fate of the structures resulting from incomplete transitions, which were soon to be considered old instead of new, would return once more to consideration from the standpoint of “ordinary” comparative politics. 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With the abandonment of the correlation between economic performance and politics, the meaning of socioeconomic structure for transition processes was discarded and it was overlooked that such a socioeconomic structure is not identified with economic performance. 2 For a definition of rent economy, see section of this paper titled ‘Democracy and Development.’ 3 The term “polyarchy” is taken from the author who introduced it into modern political science. This has reference, however, only to constitutionally given rights. Here, the reality will be taken as a standard of estimation of the regime. Cf. R. A. Dahl (1989:221) 4 This assessment in based on the following points: Article 1 of the new constitution for the first time defines Colombia as a State under the rule of law, such as is prominent in the constitutions of Western democracies. While the constitution of 1886 only had a total of 36 articles about rights and guarantees for citizens, the constitution of 1991 has 72 articles, which, contrary to former constitutions, not only address the basic political rights of the “first generation,” but also social, economic, and cultural rights, and therefore the rights of the “second generation,” and collective as well as environmental rights, and therefore the rights of the “third generation.” Today, the state explicitly recognizes the ethnic and cultural variety of the Colombian nation with the intention to protect it. One of the political basic rights that is listed is the right to peace, which is connected to the duty of peace. An increased significance is allocated to the political participation of citizens, which shall not only render a representative but even a participative democracy a norm. It introduces the Office of Public Prosecution (Fiscalía General de la Nación) as well as the separation of investigation and accusation. New features are furthermore a Consejo Superior de la Judicatura, an officially independent body that shall be organized by the judiciary; a Supreme Court separated from the Constitutional Court, whose judges shall be elected from a list composed by the President, the Supreme Court, and the Privy Counsel; a special jurisdiction for indígenas; a Justice of the Peace; a Ministerio Público including an ombudsman for human rights (Defensor del Pueblo) and above all the Acciones de Tutela. Finally, a new state of emergency regulation replaced the notorious Article 121 of the old constitution, which had no mechanisms for control, temporal limitation, and also no established limits on the challenge to basic rights during a state of emergency, under which Colombia found itself almost permanently. Now a legal concept of Estado de Conmoción Interior has been introduced whereby it may have only 90days duration and may be extended twice. 5 “Bipartidismo” does not mean a two-party system, nor a dominant two-party system, but stands specifically for the exclusionary two-party system consisting of the Liberal and Conservative Parties. 6 The voters could freely choose 70 out of a total of 778 candidates for the Constituent Assembly. They voted in a non-traditional way and so opened a unique “window of opportunity”: It was the Alianza Democrática M-19 (AD M-19), a former guerrilla movement, that won most votes (27%) electing 19 members, followed by the Movimiento de Salvación Nacional (MSN) with 15% and 11 members. The Unión Patriótica, ethnic and religious minorities were also represented in the Assembly, as well as weak but, by then, demobilized guerrillas, such as the Ejército Poplar de Liberación/Esperanza Paz y Libertad (EPL) with the right to vote, Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores (PRT) and the Movimiento Armado Quintín Lame (MAQL) without the right to vote. Altogether, there were 10 different “sectors,” none of which disposed of an absolute majority—so that different and changing provisional coalitions had to be reached, with the need, albeit difficult, to reach a consensus dominating proceedings. Two blocks emerged within the Assembly: one formed by AD M-19, MSN, the ethnic and religious minorities, and ex-guerrillas, and another by the two traditional Liberal and (Social) Conservative parties. The first block was stronger than the latter and drew its strength from fighting against the traditional parties' clientelism. The traditional distribution of power of the legislative branch, where both traditional parties had always held a majority, was reversed in the Constituent Assembly. 7 To contain the exclusionary system of “bipartidismo,” in the new constitution the notorious Article 120 from the 1886 constitution was abolished, and the elected president obligated to offer a government post to the second strongest party based on elections. Also, there is now a function of the vice-president—who may belong to an alternative party to the president—to introduce a second ballot for the presidential chair with which alliances between small parties receive recognition, the financial support of the electoral party campaigns, guaranteed access to the media and opposition statute. All this should make possible democratic contestation without clientelism or corruption. 8 See the communist weekly journal Voz, August 14–20, 2002, p. 8. 9 At the end of the 1990s, the police were not present in 95% of the corregimientos and in 10% of the municipalities (Rangel Suárez 1999:39). 10 Hans R. Blumenthal (2001:151) writes: “Almost all social groups deny any relations to the paramilitaries, one behaves indignant and speaks of criminal organizations. In private, however, it is unbashfully spoken of the necessity of supporting them.” (“Von fast allen gesellschaftlichen Gruppen werden jegliche Verbindungen zu Paramilitärs geleugnet, man gibt sich indigniert und spricht von kriminellen Organisationen. Privat wird jedoch ohne Scheu über die Notwendigkeit ihrer Unterstützung gesprochen”). 11 The percentage of votes cast for the Chamber of Representatives has remained remarkably stable since 1958. During the Frente Nacional, about 93% voted for the two traditional parties in elections for the Chamber of Representatives, declining somewhat to approximately 91% up to 1990 (Hoskin 1998:56). 12 This applies to constitutional complaints, that is, law suits of basic rights in order to protect civil liberties, such as the mechanism of a fast judicial protection of individual and collective rights against public institutions that come into action when the state violates these rights. Compare, also note 4. 13 See Organización Mundial Contra la Tortura (1992), which was published by several international NGOs engaged in human rights issues, and which documents 350 cases. 14 If not expressly stated, the data is taken from Helfrich-Bernal (2001). 15 See Montoya Moncada (1997:1). 16 The famous quotation reads as follows: “Throughout the nineteenth century theorists of democracy found it quite natural to discuss whether one country or another was fit for democracy. This thinking changed only in the twentieth century, with the recognition that the question itself was wrong: A country does not have to be deemed fit for democracy; rather, it has to become fit through democracy. This is indeed a momentous change, extending the potential reach of democracy to cover billions of people, with their varying histories and cultures and disparate levels of affluence” (Sen 1999:4, italics in original). © 2009 International Studies Association
TI - Regime-Hybridity in Developing Countries: Achievements and Limitations of New Research on Transitions
JF - International Studies Review
DO - 10.1111/j.1468-2486.2009.00850.x
DA - 2009-06-02
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/regime-hybridity-in-developing-countries-achievements-and-limitations-SZ4K2dgpjp
SP - 1
EP - 331
VL - Advance Article
IS - 2
DP - DeepDyve
ER -