A
two-day conference, organized by
Historein
Freie
Universität Berlin
Center
for European and Mediterranean Studies, NYU
NYU
Berlin
NYU
Berlin & Freie Universität, 22-23 November 2013
The
so-called “transition studies” were born after the collapse of authoritarian
regimes in Southern Europe in the mid 1970s, and those of Latin America around
a decade later. An extremely popular research subfield for a while, these
studies attempted to codify and systematize the study of transitions to
democracy, to analyze their qualitative features and propose models in relation
to the criteria for determining what constituted democratization successes and
failures. To quote transition studies pioneer Philippe C. Schmitter, “pretence
of this new, and, perhaps, pseudo-science, [wa]s that it c[ould] explain and,
hopefully, guide the way from one regime to another or, more specifically […]
from some form of autocracy to some form of democracy”. The collapse of the
regimes of the Eastern Bloc in 1989 gave a push to this research agenda by
offering “transitologists” an even wider range of case studies.
Although
Greece and, above all, Spain were both considered being “model” transitions,
the simultaneous current economic crisis in both countries, created a need to
reassess post-authoritarian phenomena. The same applies to the countries of
Eastern Europe but also Latin America. As the recent experience of Argentina demonstrated
in times of great economic upheaval, post-authoritarian structures are questioned
and revised in dramatic ways. In moments of deep social, political and economic
crisis, the recent past often becomes a central issue of contention.
Additionally, the uprisings that shook Arab countries in 2011 – and were codenamed
as “Arab Spring” – revived some of the central questions of what constitutes a
smooth passage to democratic rule after decades of authoritarianism, and
whether the main actors that act as their engines are the masses or the elites.
