The Diffusion of Regime Contention in European Democratization, 1830-1940

This article goes beyond the established literature’s focus on domestic conditions by examining the impact of external impulses on European democratization from 1830 to 1940. Specifically, it analyzes the diffusion of regime conflict that arose from the cross-national spread of situational judgments about the feasibility of political change: Striking precedents of regime collapse, such as the overthrow of French kings in 1830 and 1848, tended to produce dramatic waves of political contention across Europe. But because the actual distribution of power in polities that experienced such externally stimulated episodes of regime contention often differed from the front-runner, these conflicts produced various types of results. The article distinguishes four outcomes of diffusion, namely (a) successful replication, (b) preemptive reform, (c) abortive replication, and (d) blockage of replication efforts. The latter two outcomes help explain why in European history, not only did political liberalism and democracy diffuse, but during certain time periods authoritarianism, corporatism, and fascism spread as well.

[1]  M. Lazerowitz The Passing of an Illusion , 1977 .

[2]  R. Mcdermott,et al.  Political Psychology in International Relations , 2004 .

[3]  John D. Stephens,et al.  Capitalist Development and Democracy. , 1992 .

[4]  G. Marwell,et al.  The critical mass in collective action , 1993 .

[5]  G. Steinmetz Forging Democracy , 2004 .

[6]  M. Beissinger Nationalist mobilization and the collapse of the Soviet State , 2002 .

[7]  G. Capoccia,et al.  The Historical Turn in Democratization Studies: A New Research Agenda for Europe and Beyond , 2010 .

[8]  Daniel M. Brinks,et al.  Diffusion Is No Illusion , 2006 .

[9]  J. Sheehan German liberalism in the nineteenth century , 1978 .

[10]  Jonathan Sperber The European revolutions, 1848-1851 , 1994 .

[11]  Kurt Weyland The Diffusion of Revolution: ‘1848’ in Europe and Latin America , 2009, International Organization.

[12]  Daron Acemoglu,et al.  Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Our Argument , 2005 .

[13]  Barbara Wejnert,et al.  Diffusion, Development, and Democracy, 1800-1999 , 2005 .

[14]  N. Roussellier,et al.  Neutral Europe between War and Revolution, 1917-23 , 1989 .

[15]  Rajeev Gowda,et al.  Judgments, Decisions, and Public Policy: Commentary and Cautionary Note , 2001 .

[16]  N. Bermeo Democracy and the Lessons of Dictatorship , 1992 .

[17]  J. Wittenberg,et al.  Beyond Dictatorship and Democracy: Rethinking National Minority Inclusion and Regime Type in Interwar Eastern Europe , 2010 .

[18]  D. Ziblatt How Did Europe Democratize? , 2006 .

[19]  Kurt Weyland,et al.  Toward a New Theory of Institutional Change , 2008 .

[20]  Kurt Weyland Bounded Rationality and Policy Diffusion , 2006 .

[21]  Franklin D. Scott Sweden, the nation's history , 1977 .

[22]  G. Bárány The Politics of Backwardness in Hungary: 1825-1945. By Andrew C. Janos. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982. xxxvi, 370 pp. Maps. Tables. $27.50, cloth. $12.50, paper. , 1985, Slavic Review.

[23]  S. Kitson,et al.  A History of Fascism (1914-1945) , 1995 .

[24]  Diffusion, Development and Democratization: Enfranchisement in Western Europe , 1982, Canadian Journal of Political Science.

[25]  B. Simmons,et al.  On Waves, Clusters, and Diffusion: A Conceptual Framework , 2005 .

[26]  Lothar Gall,et al.  Europa auf dem Weg in die Moderne 1850-1890 , 2009 .

[27]  Giovanni Capoccia,et al.  The Study of Critical Junctures: Theory, Narrative, and Counterfactuals in Historical Institutionalism , 2007 .

[28]  Charles Kurzman Waves of democratization , 1998 .

[29]  Francesca Polletta,et al.  Dynamics of Contention , 2002 .

[30]  G. Capoccia,et al.  The Historical Turn in Democratization Studies , 2010 .

[31]  Otis C. Mitchell A History of Fascism 1914–1945 , 1996 .

[32]  Enrico Spolaore,et al.  Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy , 2007 .

[33]  S. Huntington The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century , 1991 .