Syria: Prospects for Reform

The University Archives has determined that this item is of continuing value to OSU's history.Ellen Lust-Okar is one of a few scholars who have examined the prospects for political reform and democratization in Syria. Given the delicate stability of Syria's authoritarian regime and the weakness of the political opposition in the country, Lust-Okar believes that the prospects for democratization in Syria are dim. However, she argues, it would be counterproductive for the United States to push for regime change in Syria, in part because of the difficulty and instability encountered in trying to establish democracy in Iraq.Ohio State University. Mershon Center for International Security StudiesEvent webpag

Elections and Ethnic Civil War

Existing research on how democratization may influence the risk of civil war tends to consider only changes in the overall level of democracy and rarely examines explicitly the postulated mechanisms relating democratization to incentives for violence. The authors argue that typically highlighted key mechanisms imply that elections should be especially likely to affect ethnic groups’ inclination to resort to violence. Distinguishing between types of conflict and the order of competitive elections, the authors find that ethnic civil wars are more likely to erupt after competitive elections, especially after first and second elections following periods of no polling. When disaggregating to the level of individual ethnic groups and conflicts over territory or government, the authors find some support for the notion that ethno-nationalist mobilization and sore-loser effects provoke postelectoral violence. More specifically, although large groups in general are more likely to engage in governmental conflicts, they are especially likely to do so after noncompetitive elections. Competitive elections, however, strongly reduce the risk of conflict. </jats:p

Reform in Syria : steering between the Chinese model and regime change

Ellen Lust-Oka

Divided they fall: The management and manipulation of political opposition.

This dissertation examines the question of when opposition elites use the threat or mobilization of masses to press for changes in closed political systems. It rejects the common notion that there is a simple relationship between an increase in mass discontent and pressures for political liberalization. Instead, it argues that the likelihood that opposition elites make demands upon incumbent political elites depends not only on the level of mass discontent but also upon the political environment within which these elites act. That is, the extent to which opposition elites are willing to mobilize the masses depends upon the relationships between various opposition elites, as well as upon their relationships with the incumbent regime and with the masses themselves. Furthermore, this dissertation emphasizes that incumbent elites, in all types of regimes, help to create and to shape these political relationships. Incumbents can exacerbate the divisions existing between various political opponents by allowing some opposition groups to become stronger and weakening others. They also manipulate the incentive structures that opposition elites face when deciding whether or not to demand political change by admitting some opponents into the formal political system and excluding others. The incumbent elites' choices in shaping the political environment are enormously important, though too often overlooked. They are also, in part, responses to earlier pressures from political opponents. Past reactions to political pressures have an immense impact on the level and type of political opposition which elites face in the future. The dissertation uses the method of structured comparison to examine the question of when pressures for political change become likely. It uses a formal model of opposition-government interactions to derive hypotheses about when political elites will exploit increasing discontent, mobilizing protests to demand political change. The dissertation then uses this model to examine the likelihood of increased political mobilization in the cases of Morocco, Jordan, and Egypt during the economic crises of the 1980s. Morocco and Jordan are explored in detail, illustrating the model's hypotheses. The cases Egypt and Israel provide confidence that the model generalizes across regime types.Ph.D.Political scienceSocial SciencesSocial structureUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/130772/2/9811136.pd