political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

and in international and comparative

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

and

economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

, transitology is the study of the process of change from one political

regime In politics, a regime (also spelled régime) is a system of government that determines access to public office, and the extent of power held by officials. The two broad categories of regimes are democratic and autocratic. A key similarity acros ...

to another, mainly from

authoritarian Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in democracy, separation of powers, civil liberties, and ...

regimes to democratic ones rooted in conflicting and consensual varieties of

economic liberalism Economic liberalism is a political and economic ideology that supports a market economy based on individualism and private property in the means of production. Adam Smith is considered one of the primary initial writers on economic liberalism ...

. Transitology tries to explain processes of

democratization Democratization, or democratisation, is the structural government transition from an democratic transition, authoritarian government to a more democratic political regime, including substantive political changes moving in a democratic direction ...

in a variety of contexts, from bureaucratic authoritarianism and other forms of dictatorship in

Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

southern Europe Southern Europe is also known as Mediterranean Europe, as its geography is marked by the Mediterranean Sea. Definitions of southern Europe include some or all of these countries and regions: Albania, Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, C ...

and

northern Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

to postcommunist developments in

eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...

. The debate has become something of an academic "turf-war" between comparative studies and

area studies Area studies, also known as regional studies, is an interdisciplinary field of research and scholarship pertaining to particular geographical, national/ federal, or cultural regions. The term exists primarily as a general description for what a ...

scholars, while highlighting several problematic features of

social science Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among members within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the ...

methodology In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for bri ...

, including

generalization A generalization is a form of abstraction whereby common properties of specific instances are formulated as general concepts or claims. Generalizations posit the existence of a domain or set of elements, as well as one or more common characteri ...

, an overemphasis on

elite In political and sociological theory, the elite (, from , to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful or wealthy people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. Defined by the ...

attitudes and behavior,

Eurocentrism Eurocentrism (also Eurocentricity or Western-centrism) refers to viewing Western world, the West as the center of world events or superior to other cultures. The exact scope of Eurocentrism varies from the entire Western world to just the con ...

, the role of

history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

in explaining causality, and the inability to produce testable

hypotheses A hypothesis (: hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. A scientific method, scientific hypothesis must be based on observations and make a testable and reproducible prediction about reality, in a process beginning with an educ ...

. Transitology explains the different pathways to and from democracy as explained in the Massive Open Online Cours
MOOC on Transitology
set up by Anja Mihr and launched by the Global Campus for Human Rights . In this training course Transitology is explained as a concept and analytical framework applied in political and social science to analyse political regime change in either ways, democratic or autocratic. Successful democratic transition, is one pathway how democratic institutions slowly consolidate and strengthen over time. Transitology also explains why weak and corrupted democratic institutions fail and backslide into authoritarian political practices and, subsequently, autocracies.

Notable academics

* Dankwart Rustow, father of the theory of transitology, former Columbia University professor, and professor for 25 years at the

City University of New York The City University of New York (CUNY, pronounced , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven ...

. * Philippe C. Schmitter, a key proposes on transitology and author of ''Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions About Uncertain Democracies'' (1986) with

Guillermo O'Donnell Guillermo Alberto O'Donnell Ure (February 24, 1936 – November 29, 2011) was a prominent Argentine political scientist who specialized in comparative politics and Latin American politics. He spent most of his career working in Argentina and ...

. *

Joseph Stiglitz Joseph Eugene Stiglitz (; born February 9, 1943) is an American New Keynesian economist, a public policy analyst, political activist, and a professor at Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2 ...

, Nobel Prize–winning economist and professor of economics at Columbia University. *

Jeffrey Sachs Jeffrey David Sachs ( ; born November 5, 1954) is an American economist and public policy analyst who is a professor at Columbia University, where he was formerly director of The Earth Institute. He worked on the topics of sustainable develop ...

, Director of the Earth Institute, Columbia University. * Katharina Pistor, Professor of Law, Columbia University. *

Seymour Martin Lipset Seymour Martin Lipset ( ; March 18, 1922 – December 31, 2006) was an American sociologist and political scientist. His major work was in the fields of political sociology, trade union organization, social stratification, public opinion, and t ...

, While Lipset did not study transitology directly, his theories on the role of economic development in the survival of democracy, first articulated in ''"Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy,'' has been influential in the field. *

Larry Diamond Larry Jay Diamond (born October 2, 1951) is an American political sociologist and scholar in the field of democracy studies. Diamond is a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University's main center ...

, political science professor at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, has been significant in the development of the concept of

illiberal democracy The term "illiberal democracy" describes a Government, governing system that hides its "nondemocratic practices behind formally democratic institutions and procedures". There is a lack of consensus among experts about the exact definition of ...

and its role in democratic transitions. * Thomas Carothers, also significant in the development of the concept of illiberal democracy and articulating the distinction between a consolidating democracy and an illiberal democracy.The End of the Transition Paradigm, Journal of Democracy, vol. 13, no 1, January 2002.

References

External links

*
Searching for Transitologists: Contemporary Theories of Post-Communist Transitions and the Myth of a Dominant Paradigm
Subfields of political science {{poli-stub