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This paper proceeds as follows. First, we briefly review the literature regarding
crises, democracy, and learning. Then, we explain how we selected our countries and
crises. Third, we discuss the leverage that an analytic narrative approach offers to the
study of democratization and present narratives for the series of crises in our first
country, Italy. Fourth, we present a bargaining model based on actors’ behavior in Italy
and test hypotheses derived from this model in thirty-nine crises in the remaining eleven
cases. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings and our plans for future
research.
Learning to Consolidate Democracy
Can actors learn to consolidate democracy? This paper begins to answer this
question by investigating how actors negotiated with each other during national crises.
Were they able to learn from each other’s actions so as to resolve the crisis? Dogan and
Higley define crises as “abrupt and brutal challenges to the survival of the political
regime” (1998, 6-7). We investigate actor behavior during crises for two reasons. First,
crises offer an opportunity for one, or both, actors to work toward changing political
institutions. Second, crises force actors to act: they must decide whether or not they
support the status quo, such as particular policies or institutions. Thus, we are
investigating whether actors can learn to negotiate with each other in the worst possible
scenarios, when the government’s institutions, and perhaps its very existence, are
threatened; when cooperation will not be easy (or cannot be taken for granted); and when
the decisions that actors make, regarding how to interact with each other, can affect
whether democracy is reinforced or undermined.
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For an overview of the literature on crises, see Binder et. al. (1977) and Peterson (1996).
Convention