comparative political systems

Student’s name
Teacher’s Name
Student’s Group
12 April 2018
Problems of democratic transition in “Delegative Democracy” by G. O’Donnell
In his article, Guillermo O’Donnell discusses the development of the newly democratic countries in the first years after the end of the Cold War and underlines the key features of the process of democratization. The paper was written in the period when processes of democratic transition were of a great importance as different transitions occurred simultaneously in Latin America (after demolition of military juntas system in the 1980s), Eastern Europe (democratic revolutions of 1989 and dissolution of the Soviet Union) and East Asia (soft democratization of the frontline countries from both socialist and western blocs). The key conclusions of the paper are as follows (O’Donnell, 56):
It is wrong to assume that the democratic transition occurs in a single way, as the development of the democratic society may take different forms. It is important to create a classification of different types of democratic transition.
The transition to democracy is not a one-stop shop and rather takes two key steps to be performed. The first step is the creation of poliarchy which generally resembles previous authoritarian regimes but with shifting governments and changing leaders.
The second stage of the transition to the democratic society is the establishment of the democratic regime, rather than just popularly elected government. The d…