Transformation (Political Science)

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Transformation (from late Latin transformare , Latin transformare , German to reshape, to transform ) is in comparative political science the process of fundamentally changing a political system and possibly also the social and economic order.

application

Transformation research in political science deals with the processes of change in states and societies, both in the direction of democratization and in the direction of de-democratization or depoliticization.

In the transition from dictatorships to democracies (democratization), the countries of the “third wave of democratization”, i.e. those countries that changed their systems to democracy after 1974, are considered:

A distinction must be made between the following sub-categories in the transformation:

  • Change of government
  • Regime change
  • System change
  • System change
  • Transition

The transformation of a political system is divided into the following phases:

  • De-differentiation of the old system / regime
  • End of the old system / regime
  • Institutionalization of the new system
  • Redifferentiation and consolidation of the new system

Transformation theories

According to Talcott Parson's system theory, traditional societies develop into modern societies by differentiating their social subsystems: economy, political system, community and culture. Evolutionary universals such as bureaucracy, market organization, legal system, democratic association law and free elections are developed . The absence of any of these evolutionary universals tends to undermine the legitimacy of a system. If the lack of legitimacy from society coincides with an obstacle to the differentiation of society (for example through communist order), this leads to a collapse of the autocratic system.

According to Seymour Martin Lipset's theory of modernization, the emergence of democracy is linked to the emergence of a wealthy middle class. Lipset was able to empirically prove the connection between gross domestic product and degree of democratization. He designed the following causal chain: economic development → increasing level of education → development of rational and tolerant attitudes and behavior among citizens → democratization of the middle class → emergence of civil associations that want and have to participate in politics. Conversely, according to Lipset, positive economic development leads to the transition of the autocratic regime.

According to Tatu Vanhanen's power dispersion theory, the transformation of an autocratic system depends on the redistribution of resources . The wider the dispersion of power resources in a society, the higher its degree of democratization, because no group would be able to oust competitors and maintain hegemony. Democracy emerges as a rational compromise between elites and groups with a basic social compromise. Vanhannen measures the distribution of resources in a society using the Index of Power Resources, which is made up of economic, cognitive and professional resources. The power dispersion theory is an extension of the modernization theory.

With the actor theory of the system is attached to the micro level and considers the actions, cognition and strategies crucial actors. Mass participation as well as political institutions or international influences play a subordinate role; they form the action corridor for the actors.

Descriptive-empirical actor theory analyzes actor constellations that can be summarized in conditional clauses: Transition occurs when:

  • when hardliners and softliners of the old regime are split
  • if the initiated transformation is noticed by the public and an opposition develops
  • when the opposition and the softliner come together to form a coalition in favor of the new system
  • when the authoritarian elite of the old regime and the softline opposition enter into political pacts for institutionalization.

The theory of rational decision states that transformation is the result of rational actors. However, these are subject to misperceptions of their own retention of power or opportunities to gain access to power. The theory of the rational decision doubts the success of the transformation if the key actors of the old regime are not subject to the misperception that the transformation is a project that can be controlled from above and that it can be stopped at any time if the interests of the actors are threatened. The advantage of the theory of the rational decision is the predictability of the transformation success even with changing actor constellations.

Causes of transformation

Legitimacy crisis due to economic inefficiency
The legitimation of totalitarian systems is often directly linked to the economic situation. If the economic system continues to be inefficient, the regime can enter a legitimacy crisis, which can be the cause of a transformation. Example: failed economic modernization perestroika , GDR .
Legitimacy crisis due to economic efficiency
According to the modernization theory, economic growth changes the social structure of a society: the decline in the agricultural sector and the increase in the service sector result in the loss of influence of the large landowners and the gain in influence of the wealthy educated middle class . The latter urges participation rights in the political decision-making and decision-making process and is an essential factor in initiating a transformation.
Legitimacy crisis due to key events
Key events such as the death of a dictator or political scandals can result in a loss of legitimacy. Corruption and human rights violations can also lead to the growth of protest movements that are putting the regime under pressure to transform. Examples are the death of Stalin or the cassette scandal in Ukraine, which ushered in the end of the Leonid Kuchma era .
War defeat
The military defeat or surrender of a country is a common cause of its transformation. A distinction is made between whether the transformation is initiated by the occupying power (example: Germany 1945, Japan 1945) or whether the defeat of an occupying power brings about the transformation of the occupied country (example, the Netherlands or Norway after the collapse of the German occupation during the Second World War ).
Elimination of external support
If political regimes are dependent on the support of an external actor, the loss of aid leads to transformation. The abolition of the Brezhnev Doctrine by Gorbachev had a major impact on the separation and transition of the Baltic states. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea could also come under transformation pressure if economic and political support from China were to cease.
Domino effect
The simultaneous collapse of socialist Eastern Europe in regional waves led to the emergence of the domino theory . Another example is the rapid transformation to communist systems during the post-war period. ( Democratic People's Republic of Korea , Vietnam and others)
socio-ecological transformation
Protests, scientific discussions, manifestos, press interviews and demonstrations against the "finance-market-driven politics that led to the financial crisis in 2008" have shown since around 2008: "There is a solidary trend that advocates real democracy and a socio-ecological transformation of society. " According to Klaus Dörre , it should be noted that both concerns are inextricably linked: “Struggles for employment and fair wages can no longer be carried out successfully without localization, even on the axis of ecological social conflict. Conversely, however, it is true that ecological sustainability cannot be had without social sustainability. "

Forms of the transformation

gradual-evolutionary
Transformation can take place as an evolutionary process. This was especially the case in the first wave of democratization, in which, for example, the right to vote and other participation rights of the citizens developed gradually and not revolutionarily.
transformation forced from below
If the protest of broad masses of the population cannot be ended by the ruling regime, the old elite are usually completely, often violently, disempowered.
Transformation directed by old elites
When the old elites initiate the transformation, they can often save their political power over to the new system. Example: Weimar Republic 1918, Perestroika , South Africa 1990
negotiated system change
If a stalemate arises between the regime elite and the regime opposition, a new form of political rule can be negotiated. The prerequisite is the rational action of every actor involved. Example: Poland 1988.
Regime collapse
A regime collapse is usually caused by external causes such as military defeat. If no new elites are formed that could transform or stabilize the old system, it will collapse completely. Examples: GDR 1989, Soviet Union 1991
Establishing new states
If federal states or empires disintegrate into individual state structures after the collapse of the regime, new states can be established. Examples are the new foundations after the dissolution of the Soviet Union: Belarus , Ukraine and the Central Asian states.

Transformation strategies

Neoclassical approach

The neoclassical approach draws on the transformation theories of the Bretton Woods institutions, which emerged in the late 1980s and are based on the experience of the transformation of South American regimes. The Bretton Woods institutions (United States Treasury, IMF , World Bank ) manifested these experiences as common wisdom in the Washington Consensus, which sets out the following global points as a transformation strategy:

The detailed strategy of the Washington Consensus comprises the following 10 points:

There are two strategies for implementing the Washington Consensus: shock therapy and gradualism . Shock therapy carries out a simultaneous reshaping of all sub-orders of the social and economic system in the early phase of transformation. Shock therapy advocates say that communist, authoritarian and bureaucratic structures of the old system can only be broken up suddenly and simultaneously, otherwise the old system will be restored. Gradualism advocates a gradual and long-term transformation of the economic and social sphere. He argues that parts of the economic transformation are mutually dependent. For example, the privatization of a monopoly without developed market competition only leads to the replacement of the state monopoly by a private one. Sundhausen: "The shock works, the therapy doesn't."

The implementation of the Washington Consensus is a condition (condition) for the granting of credits by the IMF. The Washington Consensus was largely implemented during the transformation in the former Soviet republics. The success of the Washington Consensus as a transformation strategy is controversial.

Criticism of the neoclassical approach

The criticism of the neoclassical approach and in particular of the Washington Consensus mainly criticizes the concentration on the economic aspect of the transformation instead of presenting possible solutions for the political and social transformation:

  • The Washington Consensus is tailored to reform market-economy countries and can therefore not be a transformation strategy for communist regimes.
  • The Washington Consensus is based on experiences in Latin America in the 1980s and therefore cannot be applied to other cultures.
  • The neoclassical approach ignores the building of economic and political institutions.
  • Liberalization and privatization cannot produce the institutions necessary for their regulation themselves.
  • The implementation in the Eastern European post-communist states after 1991, with the deregulation of the state's influence on order, led to excessive competition and thus caused disparities in prosperity and impoverishment of the population.

See also

literature

  • Harald Bender: The time of movement - structural dynamics and transformation processes. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 978-3-631-30053-4
  • Carl Bertelsmann Prize 2001: Shaping Change - Strategies of Transformation , Volume 2, ISBN 978-3-89204-595-3
  • Ulrich Dolata , Jan-Felix Schrape : Internet, Mobile Devices and the Transformation of Media. Radical change as gradual reconfiguration. Edition Sigma, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-83603-588-0
  • Martin Held, Gisela Kubon-Gilke, Richard Sturn, 2015: The great transformation . Yearbook 15 Normative and Institutional Basic Questions of Economics , Metropolis, ISBN 373-1-611694
  • Grzegorz Kolodko: Transition to a market economy and sustained growth. In: Communist and post-communist politics and societies , H. 32, 1999, p. 223 ff.
  • Jerzy Maćków : Totalitarianism and afterwards , Nomos, Baden-Baden 2005
  • Wolfgang Merkel : System Transformation. An introduction to the theory and empiricism of transformation research. 2nd, revised and expanded edition, Wiesbaden 2010, ISBN 978-3-531-14559-4
  • Karl Polanyi : The Great Transformation . Political and economic origins of societies and economic systems. Frankfurt am Main 1978
  • Rolf Reissig: Social Transformation in the 21st Century. A new concept of social change. Wiesbaden 2009, ISBN 978-3-531-17016-9
  • Eberhard Sandschneider : Stability and Transformation of Political Systems. Status and perspectives of political science transformation research. Opladen 1995
  • Uwe Schneidewind , Eds. Klaus Wiegandt , Harald Welzer , 2018: The Great Transformation. An introduction to the art of social change . S. Fischer Taschenbuch, Forum for Responsibility , ISBN 978-3-596-70259-6
  • Georg Vobruba : Beyond the social questions. Modernization and transformation of social systems. Frankfurt am Main 1991

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. E.g. Jens Borchert: The Conservative Transformation of the Welfare State: Great Britain, Canada, the USA and Germany in Comparison (= Theory and Society. Vol. 34; Zugl .: Göttingen, Univ. Diss., 1994). Campus, Frankfurt a. M./New York 1995, ISBN 3-593-35394-6 .
  2. ^ After Samuel P. Huntington : The third wave. Democratization in the late Twentieth Century
  3. ^ Socio- ecological restructuring of society on the way to a solidary modernity. Institute Solidarity Modern , October 5, 2011, accessed on January 29, 2018 .
  4. Manifesto for a Social and Ecological Transformation. Naturfreundejugend Deutschlands , April 1, 2017, accessed on January 29, 2018 .
  5. Capitalism hits the wall and nobody researches the braking distance. Ulrike Herrmann , November 2, 2015, accessed on January 29, 2018 .
  6. a b Attac calls for participation in the large-scale demonstration "Limitless Solidarity instead of G20!" on , June 21, 2017
  7. Klaus Dörre on Friday 29/2020: [1]