Transgovernmental Networks as an Apprenticeship in Democracy? Socialization into Democratic Governance through Cross-national Activities

Does contact with democratic governance make state officials in authoritarian regimes more democratic? While studies of democratic diffusion are built on the inherent assumption that exposure to democratic practices shapes the attitudes of domestic actors toward democracy, scholars of international socialization are more skeptical about such micro-effects. Drawing on insights from sociology and social psychology, I examine what type of cross-national activities can socialize Moroccan state officials into democratic governance. The results of cross-sectional, multivariate regression analyses based on original survey data emphasize that, in authoritarian contexts, transnational linkage manifests the potential to democratize only if it involves practical experience, a condition fulfilled by cooperative exchange within transgovernmental networks, but not by more diffuse types of linkage such as international education and foreign media broadcastin

Planting the Seeds of Change Inside? Functional Cooperation with Authoritarian Regimes and Socialization into Democratic Governance

Is functional cooperation with authoritarian regimes a blessing or a curse for democratization? Scholars predominantly view cooperation with authoritarian regimes as counterproductive in terms of democratization because it helps the incumbent government to remain in power by stabilizing the regime. This article presents evidence to suggest that functional cooperation can also be considered a promising way of yielding subtle processes of democratization that have hitherto been overlooked. It explores to what extent state officials become acquainted with democratic governance by participating in transgovernmental policy networks, notably the Twinning Program, set up by the European Union in order to implement functional cooperation with its Southern neighborhood. The study conducts regression analyses based on original survey data on Moroccan state officials' attitudes toward democratic governance and complements these analyses with a qualitative comparison of different networks. The findings corroborate an optimistic reading of functional cooperation. By significantly shaping the attitudes toward democratic governance of involved state officials, cooperation appears to be able to plant seeds of change inside authoritarian regime

Do populist-leaning citizens support direct democracy?

Populist parties across Europe often support direct democracy, for example through frequent referendums. Do their voters support these initiatives too and why? Tina Freyburg, Robert Huber and Steffen Mohrenberg distinguish between citizens who support direct democracy as a way of giving power to ‘the people’ and those, known as stealth democrats, who do so out of a scepticism that politicians can be effective. They find that both sets of attitudes independently are associated with support for direct democracy, and argue that the distinction is crucial to furthering the debate about populism in Europe

New political parties can mobilise dissatisfied voters who share populist attitudes

With the economic crisis in 2008, ‘new parties’ emerged across European societies. Hugo Marcos-Marne, Carolina Plaza-Colodro and Tina Freyburg show that next to citizens’ economic assessments, voting for new parties also depends on populist attitudes. Their work underpins the importance of a deepening crisis of representation, amid which new parties are able to set links with the electorate that go beyond pure economic concerns

Be Free? The European Union's post-Arab Spring Women's Empowerment as Neoliberal Governmentality

This article analyses post-Arab Spring EU initiatives to promote women's empowerment in the Southern Mediterranean region. Inspired by Foucauldian concepts of governmentality, it investigates empowerment as a technology of biopolitics that is central to the European neoliberal model of governance. In contrast to dominant images such as normative power Europe that present the EU as a norm-guided actor promoting political liberation, the article argues that the EU deploys a concept of functional freedom meant to facilitate its vision of economic development. As a consequence, the alleged empowerment of women based on the self-optimisation of individuals and the statistical control of the female population is a form of bio-power. In this regard, empowerment works as a governmental technology of power instead of offering a measure to foster fundamental structural change in Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) societies. The EU therefore fails in presenting and promoting an alternative normative political vision distinct from the incorporation of women into the hierarchy of the existing market society

Democratic Diffusion under the Magnifying Glass: A micro perspective on the change of attitudes toward democratic governance through transnational linkages in authoritarian contexts

Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the 2012 convention of the European Political Studies Association (EPSA), and the conference “Microfoundations of diffusion research” at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne, in Sept. 2012.Students of democratic diffusion argue that strong ties to democracies foster political transformation in non-democratic regimes. They theoretically specify a long causal chain linking the micro-phenomenon of the democratic socialization of individual agents to the macro-phenomenon of regime-type change. However, we know little about the extent to which and the conditions under which transnational linkages familiarize domestic agents with democratic rules and practices. This paper empirically scrutinizes the micro-foundation of the democratic diffusion argument by analyzing the impact of social linkage (international education) and communication linkage (foreign media) on the attitudes toward democratic governance of state officials in the stable authoritarian regime of Morocco. As the machinery of government bureaucracy is particularly relevant for democratic change. However, bureaucrats, as direct beneficiaries of the incumbent regime, usually prefer the status quo. The results challenge the democratization potential of transnational linkages. Multiple regression analyses based on original survey data produce little supporting evidence for a democratizing effect of media broadcasting and international education on the attitudes of Moroccan state officials. While it appears that study visits to democracies have no statistically significant effect, foreign media can positively shape a state official’s attitude, but only in non-politicized policy fields

Planting the Seeds of Change Inside?: Functional Cooperation with Authoritarian Regimes and Socialization into Democratic Governance

ISSN:1935-622

Wenn die Wüste blüht: Eine Replik auf Thomas Bräuninger

In meinem ZIB-Aufsatz »Demokratisierung durch Zusammenarbeit?« präsentierte ich Ergebnisse meiner Studie zum demokratisierenden Potenzial transgouvernementaler Politiknetzwerke, die Staatsbeamte aus etablierten Demokratien und nichtdemokratischen Regimen auf der Verwaltungsebene zur Lösung politikfeldspezifischer Probleme zusammenbringen. Konkret erörterte ich die Frage, inwieweit und inwiefern Twinning-Projekte der Europäischen Union die Einstellungen von involvierten Staatsbeamten zu demokratischem Regieren in stabilen autoritären Regimen wie Marokko positiv prägen. Die Ergebnisse multipler Querschnittsregressionsanalysen auf Basis originärer Umfragedaten zeigen, dass transgouvernementale Netzwerke, unter der Bedingung eines vorherigen Aufenthaltes im demokratischen Ausland, Staatsbeamte in autoritären Regimen in demokratischem Regieren sozialisieren können. In seiner Replik weist Thomas Bräuninger zu Recht auf einige methodische Herausforderungen der Sozialisierungsforschung hin. Auch nach einer wiederholten Analyse meiner Daten im Lichte seiner Bedenken und Vorschläge finde ich ausreichend empirische Evidenz für ein demokratisierendes Potenzial funktionaler Kooperation in transgouvernementalen Netzwerken

Transgovernmental Networks as an Apprenticeship in Democracy? Socialization into Democratic Governance through Cross-national Activities

Does contact with democratic governance make state officials in authoritarian regimes more democratic? While studies of democratic diffusion are built on the inherent assumption that exposure to democratic practices shapes the attitudes of domestic actors toward democracy, scholars of international socialization are more skeptical about such micro-effects. Drawing on insights from sociology and social psychology, I examine what type of cross-national activities can socialize Moroccan state officials into democratic governance. The results of cross-sectional, multivariate regression analyses based on original survey data emphasize that, in authoritarian contexts, transnational linkage manifests the potential to democratize only if it involves practical experience, a condition fulfilled by cooperative exchange within transgovernmental networks, but not by more diffuse types of linkage such as international education and foreign media broadcasting

The Janus Face of EU Migration Governance: Impairing democratic governance at home – improving it abroad?

In the field of European Union (EU) migration policies, a large number of legal, administrative, and institutional tightening measures have been established in the name of domestic security since the early 1990s. These measures have been criticized because they allegedly lower the democratic quality of EU migration governance. Yet, the EU seeks to export its rules and regulations beyond its borders to neighbouring third states through its association policies. This article argues that what may be seen as a step back in terms of democratic governance inside the EU may present a step forward in its authoritarian Southern neighbourhood. It explores whether the rules of EU migration can constitute a step toward democratization of migration governance in neighbouring countries, where provisions of transparent, participatory, or accountable decision-making cannot be taken for granted. Taking the example of the Moroccan 2003 law on migration, the paper demonstrates that the EU was fairly successful in inducing the adoption of legislation in line with provisions of democratic governance. The contribution concludes with a discussion of the prospect of implementation of these provisions, in particular, against the background of the EU's extended external competences under the Lisbon Treaty