On The Predicaments Of Past And Present Transitions

If players in the transition were not recalcitrant, then the choice of the appropriate democratic rules would not be a serious problem. In such a case (wherein the players would share an implicit bias for democracy) none of them, by definition, would be facing a dilemma between regime alternatives. Further, sharing a bias for democracy, they would therefore share a readiness to tolerate and trust each other. The two facts obviate the need for a complex and possibly divisive search for explicit and elaborate rules of the game. They mean in particular that no special emphasis on mutual guarantees would be required—such guarantees being implicit and preexisting. They also mean that the uncertainty of the democratic game—the uncertainty of future performance, the prospect of even considerable slack in performance—would not trouble its players to the extent of jeopardizing the transition. They mean finally, and most importantly, that in such transitions the very presence of an implicit trust in the restrained behavior of the other allows players to accept forms of majoritarian democracy and strong party government that in other hands would be suspected of curtailing mutual guarantees. Fear of the tyranny of the majority would not be a stumbling block in drawing the new democratic rules.

This, however, is a largely hypothetical case. It may have been closer to the facts (though I have expressed reservations) when democracy was achieved by the expansion of suffrage in already liberal competitive systems. But the last time this path of democratization was followed was in the aftermath of World War I.^[4] Since then, transitions to democracy have been transitions from dictatorial regimes. Let us therefore trace our steps back to my discussion of these

crises. I suggested that a transition from dictatorship that does not require coming to terms within the democratic compromise with reluctant nondemocratic players is a rarity indeed. In all likelihood such players will be in abundant supply after a successful domestic revolution, even if the revolution is democratically inspired. There may be fewer if, in a total war, a dictatorship were utterly defeated, and the inviability of the dictatorship's ideology and practice has been unequivocally demonstrated. But we saw that the generalization is based exclusively on the uniquely tragic experience of the defeated Axis powers. I should add that, in my opinion, the Federal Republic of Germany is actually the only former Axis power whose democratic reconstruction fits the generalization comfortably. Only there were authoritarian players confined to a marginal status. Only there was the conversion of authoritarian players to the democratic game not a stumbling block.^[5]

The reader remembers, by contrast, the transitions from dictatorship that are most common nowadays. I am abstracting and simplifying, but one can think of a number of fitting cases—especially from Latin America, southern Europe, and Asia. Although still in their infancy, transitions in the Communist world also come to mind. Transitions tend to originate nowadays from the efforts of autocratic governments to extricate themselves. There will be a seceding "right" that, by its efforts at extrication, sets in motion (examples are Greece and Argentina; a prospective one may be Hungary) or accelerates (the Philippines, Poland) a regime crisis. But that right is not quite able or willing to push for full democratization because it is divided over the handling of the crisis, or because it is at odds with the regime's core, or because it is that core. There will be a "left" that, even if sold on democracy (and not all will be), may not be sold yet on this democracy. It may fear the reappearance of the past

in new guises (what in Spanish is called continuismo ) or the outright failure of the democratic experiment, and may therefore be vulnerable to the blackmail of its extreme fringes. And there will be a center comprising forces with an implicit bias for democracy or, more simply, with a bias for strategic moderation. The strategic objective of the center is the immediate reconstitution of an open and diverse political community. Its moderating behavior is crucial, though not sufficient, in determining the outcome of the crisis.

Thus, we are not witnessing an overly promising predicament. At the same time, the situation is rather indeterminate. It may be difficult to succeed, but the predicament does not have to close in failure. Notice, for example, how each group of political actors in the transition may be internally divided on strategies and often uncertain about its own interests, how tried and true alliances may dissolve. This makes for an open-ended strategic context. What is involved in that context is not so much accommodating divergent interests—which implies that the interests are firmly defined—as shifting or redefining those interests and their treatment so that political realignments and unorthodox coalitions are possible. Choosing appropriate rules by which democratic politics will represent and process those interests is in fact one way to redefine those interests and point the political process in a democratic direction.

Finally, let us revert to a discussion of how this can be done. I shall employ three scenarios to show how transitions that unfold shakily from our unpromising predicament may still settle on appropriate rules and resolve the predicament (or else may founder). Each scenario starts with one of the three main players in our transitions (a recalcitrant right, a recalcitrant left, or a moderating center) being at least temporarily the pivot of the transition. This may happen because one actor seizes the initiative, or by default because

the other two (most fittingly the right and left) prevent each other from seizing it. Because each scenario is abstracted from past, and by now closed, episodes (Italy, Spain, and Portugal in particular), all three are couched in the language and in the referents of transitions from right-wing regimes in the European context. Nevertheless, with suitable adjustments—and with the promise to explore later post-totalitarian and Third World transitions—we can extend some of the lessons to other transitions.

Indeed, the value of the three scenarios is not that they are the most likely ones, but rather that they ar exemplary and instructive. They possess an internal plausibility that best illustrates what is fundamentally at issue in turning people toward democracy.^[6] The scenarios can be used advantageously to see how to beat the odds against democracy—how to make the improbable possible.^[7]