Dear colleagues,

Thank you for taking the time to read this manuscript. I wrote it as a chapter to be included in an edited volume looking into how protest waves are realigning democratic politics around the world. The editors explicitly asked me to take up the issue of how these protests are influencing democratic reform. Consequently, I have spent a lot of time in the chapter defining what constitutes reform and discussing how to measure it. My goal in this endeavor has not been to formulate a new theory, but to answer what amounts to a more empirical question. I welcome any comments or suggestions that you may have.

José Alemán

CHAPTER 9: PROTEST AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE, In Protest and Democracy, forthcoming, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2014.

Scholars interested in social movements have for decades debated democracy’s effect on dissent – that is, whether democracy increases or dampens protest. Comparatively speaking, less has been written about how political protest affects democracy (Giugni 1998, 1999). Once a democratic regime is installed, the expectation is that violent challenges will decline while nonviolent protest flourishes (Schatzman 2005).[1] While social protest is linked with measures of good governance (Welzel et al. 2005, 140), little is known about what precise dimensions of democracy social protest affects. This chapter takes up the issue of how recent protest waves are contributing to institutional reforms in democratic countries.

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The need to study how protest affects democratic politics stems not only from our limited knowledge in this area, but also from the reality that protest is a familiar manifestation of political behavior in modern democratic settings (Dalton et al. 2010; Johnston 2011). Some time ago, students of contentious politics began to speak of protest as so common and expected a form of political participation in democracies that they coined the term “modular” to refer to its use by multiple constituencies with diverse objectives (Tarrow 1998, 37-40). Little, however, is known about the consequences of these forms of political engagement. While protestors may not have to fear for their personal integrity (political imprisonment, torture, disappearance, or extra judicial killing) in most democracies today, many new democracies do not live up to their full potential in the areas of representativeness, accountability, equality and participation (Foweraker and Krznaric 2000, 2003, 314-315; Freedom House 2012; Lijphart 1993, 149). Instead, some are far from attaining the ideal of a political system that, in perfecting these attributes, creates the conditions for broad and equal citizenship among its subjects (Tilly 2007).[2]

The current wave of democratization gives us then the opportunity to examine how protest may be realigning democratic politics around the world. More specifically, the chapter looks at how social protest contributes to institutional reforms in both new and established democracies, leaving for another chapter the question of changes in government policies stemming from protest activity. It is by now well established that social movements can bring about three types of changes in their immediate and surrounding environment: elevating the status of challengers vis-à-vis third parties and authorities; catalyzing changes in policy; and bringing about transformations in society, the political system, and/or prevailing beliefs (Kitschelt 1986; Giugni 1998, 1999). Social movement scholars have particularly focused on policy changes as a measurable outcome of political activity since these changes can be easily measured and explained (Giugni 1999, xxii). Our data and empirical approach do not allow us to say much about changes in particular government policies. Instead, the analysis in this chapter pays more attention to systemic changes, both because they matter in their own right, and because they can also alter power relations between various social movements and their surroundings.

The chapter evaluates changes in the protection of civil and workers’ rights, changes that have made democratic regimes more inclusive (or participatory), and increases in the ability of other branches of government to constrain chief executives. The most robust findings to emerge in regards to the effect of social protest on these dimensions of democratic governance is that anti-government demonstrations help constrain the power of the executive, particularly in more developed democracies. The results also indicate that riots have adverse effects on human rights, particularly in more developed countries. Their effect on human rights, however, is positive in the presence of judicial independence. A few words are in order regarding the choice of these changes as indicators of democratic reform.

Markers of democratic reform

The most expansive definitions of liberal democracy sketch a vision of society where certain spheres of private activity are beyond the reach of the state. Individuals in these democracies are not only granted equal treatment before the law, but are also protected from the uneven and arbitrary exercise of state power and from abuse by third parties, majorities or unelected veto groups. These conceptualizations of democracy are very difficult to operationalize however, and may reflect unique Western values and experiences. Consequently, I do not make an attempt to hold democracies to such high evaluative standards.

For the purposes of this chapter, I will take the existence of many imperfect democracies – particularly in the developing world – as a reality and argue that, although a political regime cannot be fully democratic unless its citizens enjoy a great deal of autonomy, legal protection, collective representation, meaningful participation, and political accountability, changes that result in a more accountable and participatory political system can be considered indicators of democratic reform. I make the assumption that guaranteeing and protecting certain human rights helps democracies become more equitable and representative, but the analysis I present is more definitive with respect to changes that make democracies more participatory and accountable.[3] Political scientists tend to focus on representation and participation, the two processes that serve to minimally distinguish democratic regimes from their alternatives, but how governments create political accountability is equally important. I have selected four measures of reform for consideration: the protection of civil and workers’ rights, higher electoral participation, and more constrained executives.

Since Robert Dahl’s (1971) treatise on democracy, scholars have debated whether human rights should be understood as part and parcel of the definition of political regimes, or as factors that facilitate the functioning of these regimes, but are not constitutive of their basic properties. While some call for separating “elements of repression that are necessary to the definition of democracy” from “those that democracy is likely to influence once it has been established” (Davenport 2007, 101), others do not regard countries that tolerate civil rights violations as democratic. Absent these basic rights, the argument goes, any formal guarantees democracy makes are rendered meaningless because citizens are unable to express their preferences and have them weighted equally by their representatives or those who claim to compete for such a role (Munck 2009, 126). Some go as far as to note that countries that are constitutional democracies but violate civil rights be more appropriately considered as examples of an all-together different regime category – competitive authoritarianism (Levitsky and Way 2002).

The question then is whether we should lump regime characteristics – the ability of politicians to run for office and compete for citizen support in the presence of free and fair elections and institutions that empower citizens – with the state’s ability to engage in coercive activity that restricts or abrogates basic civil rights such as the freedoms of expression, association and assembly (Davenport 2007, 101). In deciding between these two competing positions, I note that democracy’s effect on human rights is conditional, that is, it depends on the level of democracy a country has attained and the existence of an environment conducive to domestic and international tranquility (Davenport 2007, 9). Only the most stable and consolidated democracies continuously uphold the fundamental rights of all their citizens (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2005). As such, the word “reform” to refer to the protection of these rights may be somewhat of a misnomer because it implies that once a country has achieved the highest possible human rights score, it cannot revert to a more repressive situation. However, democracies cum regimes do not automatically protect civil rights; countries have to work continuously to uphold these rights, a characteristic of all the reforms considered here.

Dahl (1971, 3) himself defined “polyarchy”[4] as a political system that provides eight institutional guarantees: the freedom to form and join organizations, freedom of expression, the right to vote, the right to compete for political support; and the existence of broad eligibility for public office, alternative sources of information, free and fair elections, and institutions for linking government policies to votes and other expressions of citizens’ preferences. As we can see, five of these guarantees invoke the words “freedom”, “free” or “right”.

Historically, freedom from state coercive behavior went hand in hand with increased representation and participation (Diamond 1999; Zakaria 2004). In last few decades, however, many new democracies demonstrate severe deficiencies in their ability to guarantee and protect various human rights (e.g., Foweraker and Krznaric 2002). In some countries, the government is technically chosen through popular contests, but civil liberties may not be fully guaranteed or extensively protected (Freedom House, 2012). The phenomenon led some to refer to these countries as “illiberal democracies” (Collier and Levitsky 1997, 440; Diamond 1999, 4).[5] As a result, after ascertaining that various rights and liberties are empirically related to many of the indicators political scientists use to measure democracy, I assess the effects of protest on one component of this rights measure, workers’ rights, as well as on the full measure of civil rights.

Collective labor rights are considered distinct from more basic human rights such as civil rights and political freedoms (Mosley and Uno 2007, 924) even though democracies should uniformly guarantee them. Of particular interest to us then is the extent to which some countries also provide other employment-related protections to workers.[6] This leads me to consider workers rights as instances of reform and to examine them separately from other rights. Workers rights refer to the freedom of association at the workplace and the right to bargain collectively with employers, as well as “the prohibition on the use of any form of forced or compulsory labor; a minimum age for the employment of children; and acceptable conditions of work with respect to minimum wages, hours of work, and occupational safety and health” (Cingranelli and Richards 2010).[7]

Dahl also claimed that there is a logical or definitional correspondence between the eight institutional guarantees he enumerated and one or both of his political regime dimensions – contestation and inclusiveness (Coppedge et al. 2008, 633). Contestation refers to the existence of parties and politicians from which citizens can choose the one(s) most closely aligned with their preferences. Inclusiveness refers to the ability of as many citizens as possible to participate in the selection of their leaders and policies.

Dahl’s framework is known as minimalist, that is, as including as few elements as necessary to make it possible to use analytically. In this conception, democracy is simply a set of procedures that are certain (known to all) for arriving at outcomes that are uncertain and collectively binding (Przeworski 1991). Dahl’s framework, however, begs asking to what extent regime definitions should include characteristics of the political system that transcend the process of forming a government. As Munck (2009, 124-5) and others have persuasively argued, empowering the demos to have a periodic say in the making of state policies does not guarantee these policies will be congruent with the wishes of a majority or even a subset of the people; the government should also, thorough its actions, remain accountable to the people, particularly in the middle of the electoral cycle when the people are not able to use the ballot box to pass judgment on their elected representatives.[8]

The third set of reforms to be evaluated concerns then not human rights, but changes in political institutions or their operation. Western democratic theory has a strong normative preference for polities where the executive has parity with or is subordinate to a legislature, ruling party, and/or other accountability groups.[9] The presence of strong presidents that do not seem very accountable to other branches of government, particularly in Latin America, has led some to contrast these systems, which O’Donnell (1994) referred to as “delegative democracies”, with truly representative ones.[10] I see this phenomenon, however, as more symptomatic of diminished accountability than attenuated representation.[11] Consequently, I ask to what extent checks and balances are empirically related to Dahl’s regime dimensions and examine the possibility that political protest may push democracies in the direction of more political accountability. I also examine the effect political protest is having on the level of inclusiveness (or rather the quality of participation) in the world’s democracies. The next session describes the measures of political protest used in the analysis and their expected effects.

Predictors of democratic reform

The analysis relies on yearly counts of three indicators of mass political protest – anti-government demonstrations, general strikes, and riots, all derived from Banks (2007) Cross-National Time-Series Data Archive (CNTSDA). Anti-government demonstrations are peaceful rallies of at least 100 participants; general strikes are coordinated campaigns of disruption involving at least 1,000 workers and more than one employer; and riots are violent demonstrations by more than 100 citizens.[12] For various reasons, these indicators are suitable for the analysis I present.

First, previous research (Schatzman 2005, 298) has distinguished theoretically and empirically between political challenges that aim to overthrow the ruling regime, and those that attempt “to affect policy and leadership, usually through nonviolent means.” The two types of challenge are usually referred to as “rebellion” and “protest”, with anti-government demonstrations, general strikes, and riots constituting the protest dimension. Secondly, not only is the CNTSDA one of the most widely used sources of political data; [13] these three indicators are also common in studies of social protest, regime change, and political conflict (e.g., Schatzman 2005).

Thirdly, in a world where “the effects of social movements are often indirect, unintended, and sometimes even in contradiction to their goals” (Giugni 1998, 386), the indicators are proximate enough to the outcomes we want to assess – democratic reforms, to enable us to draw valid causal inferences. Demonstrations and general strikes, for example, refer to actions that target the national/central government explicitly, but exclude rallies whose primary targets are third parties. At the same time, they are not too proximate to render the analysis tautological. The measures, that is, do not reduce dissidents’ goals to their participation in one of these events, as in the case of other contentious events coded by Banks such as guerrilla warfare and revolutions, allowing us to move analytically from a focus on immediate outcomes to the medium- and long-term consequences of social movement behavior (Giugni 1998).