Since the fall of the Soviet bloc in the early 1990s of the last century, democracy has spread across the globe to an unprecedented degree and even reached countries whose cultural and political traditions are only loosely connected to the West, where democracy—as it is practised today—has its historical roots. All these transitions were bitterly fought for, often over decades of struggle and with incredible human costs. However, for many who celebrated the end of dictatorship some years ago, democracy has not lived up to their expectations, and disillusionment with the new political order is growing among citizens in new democracies. Many of them have experienced extreme economic hardship in the aftermath of the transition, as post-transitional countries and regimes spiralled into economic recession or introduced harsh austerity measures. There is also widespread disappointment with the quality of the new democratic order, which often seems to remain at a rather superficial, procedural level without translating into effective representation and meaningful citizenship. In many countries, democratic development seems to have come to a standstill and is even reversing, giving way to the return of authoritarian politics, this time with the varnish of democratic procedures, such as elections, which the new elites have learned to manipulate to their own advantage.
These contradicting developments—between ideal and reality, democratic opening and authoritarian closure—make it difficult for post-transitional societies to arrive at a consolidated state of affairs that would allow the new democratic order to grow roots and to flourish. Indeed, these societies seem to be locked in endless struggles over power and access to resources, but also over the meaning of values and collective identities, all of which polarize citizens and political elites in equal measure. Most of the recent scholarship on democratization has therefore shifted the focus from issues of consolidation to the study of post-transitional conflicts and the emergence of hybrid regimes that oscillate between democratic and authoritarian practices (see Levitsky and Way 2010; Snyder 2000). This book aims to contribute to this body of literature, but does so by approaching post-transitional developments from a unique perspective.
First, while existing literature focuses primarily on violent conflicts and civil wars that follow the introduction of competitive elections (Cederman et al. 2010; Mann 2005; Mansfield and Snyder 1995), the chapters in this volume are mainly concerned with ‘normal politics’ and the conflicts that are associated with the transformation of power and citizenship in the aftermath of regime change. We refer to these conflicts as democratization conflicts to describe the struggles that accompany democratic transitions. Even though some of these conflicts do involve outbreaks of violence (e.g., between ethnic or religious groups, or between state forces and citizens), most democratization conflicts remain below the threshold of open and sustained violence. Nevertheless, these struggles are formative events in the development of a young democracy and often bear highly symbolic significance for the society as a whole. As such, they have the potential to influence the future pathway of a country and ultimately the quality of the emerging political order.
Second, this book takes a communication approach to understanding democratization conflicts. While most democratization research focuses on institutional change and elite actions, our perspective views democratization conflicts as communicative struggles in which the antagonists compete for hegemony over the definition of reality: how to evaluate the transition and its outcome; what sense to make of the past and how to envision the future; whose claims for leadership are legitimate; and how to reconcile national unity and the aspirations of a multitude of interests and identities. The narratives produced during these conflicts set the symbolic frames within which pathways and solutions are projected. In other words, the outcome of a conflict—which side prevails and whether an agreement can be reached—depends not only on the constellation of interests and the bargaining power of the opponents but equally on how these conflicts are portrayed and interpreted in public debate.
In the twenty-first century, the media—both traditional and new—have become the main arena where these debates are taking place. As a consequence, today’s democratization conflicts are mediated conflicts that are fought out in the media (Cottle 2006). In this respect, the democratic transitions of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries differ radically from the early ‘third wave’ of democratization (Huntington 1991) that took place in the 1970s when broadcasting was concentrated in a handful of channels and—for some readers, unimaginable!—the internet did not exist. Today, the media environment has expanded dramatically into a complex media ecology of a multitude of different channels and platforms forming a multilayered, fractured, yet convergent space of interactions and information flows (Scolari 2012).
In spite of the dramatic changes in the media environment and the central role the media play as a locus of contestation, students of democratization have paid surprisingly little attention to the role of the media in transition processes (for an overview, see Voltmer 2013; Zielonka 2015). In most democratization research, regulatory issues, most prominently censorship and state interference, and the structural features, such as ownership and media markets, dominate the research agenda. The degree of press freedom is then considered as an indicator of the progress—or lack thereof—a country has made on its path towards liberal democracy (see Bernhagen 2009; Levitsky and Way 2010). However, what is largely overlooked in this research is the agency of the media in democratization processes. They are not just mouthpieces of powerful elites, but actors in their own right, who shape the public discourse by their own logic of operation and selection preferences. Moreover, the media frequently enter the contestation as interested participants by taking sides and aligning themselves with particular conflict parties, thus determining whose voice is being heard and who is excluded from the public agenda.
This new media-saturated environment, with its abundance of voices and often overheated competition for attention and the consequences this might have for the development of emerging democracies, has still to be investigated. This volume offers new empirical material that allows us to better understand the interplay of media, communication and democratic change. Taken together, the chapters investigate the following:
- How and to what extent the new media ecology shapes opportunities of participation and/or elite manipulation?
- How the media report on and frame democratization conflicts and what the implications are for the quality of the emerging democracy?
- How journalists reflect on their own role and to what extent Western models of journalism can be applied in times of dramatic change and conflict?
- How political elites use the media, both traditional and new, and how this reflects the degree and depth of democratic change?
- How civil society actors use and take advantage of different media platforms, and how this affects their ability to be heard and to influence political decisions?
- How effective the interventions of international media assistance organizations are in developing sustainable journalism in fragile environments?
Project Background
The findings presented in this book are based on an international research project—Media, Conflict and Democratisation (MeCoDEM)—that was funded by the European Union’s Framework Seven Programme (grant agreement no. 613370) and conducted over three years (February 2014–January 2017). The research was carried out by a collaborative consortium of eight universities: University of Leeds (lead institution), University of Oxford, Ruhr-University Bochum, University of Hamburg, University of Cape Town, University of Belgrade, Stockholm University and American University in Cairo.
The empirical research of the project focused on four transitional democracies: Egypt (before 2013), Kenya, Serbia and South Africa, each of which representing specific constellations of change, political trajectories and cultural contexts. As will be explained in more detail later in this introduction, studying contrasting cases that are going through similar processes of democratic change helps to understand the impact of context factors on the dynamics and outcomes of this process.
During the three years of the project, the countries under study went through rapid—sometimes turbulent—change, providing us with insights into democratization conflicts as they happened. But in some cases, these events also affected our ability to carry out the initial research programme. The most dramatic and consequential developments took place in Egypt. When we designed the project proposal, Egypt was at the forefront of the Arab Spring and inspired pro-democracy movements across the region and beyond. By the time we started the project, the tables had turned against the reformers and authoritarianism was returning to the centres of power. Seven months before the actual start of the project, in July 2013, the military ousted the government of Mohamed Morsi, who had won the first post-revolution election. The bloodshed of that event and the criminalization and persecution of the Muslim Brotherhood following the coup d’état created an atmosphere of fear and insecurity that posed severe limitations on our research activities in the country. The kidnapping and murder of the Italian postgraduate student Giulio Regeni in Cairo in January 2016 was another event that emphasized the pressure on academic research in the country. For the sake of the safety of both researchers and participants, we therefore decided not to investigate any post-July 2013 issues or conflicts that involved the Muslim Brotherhood, who was declared a terrorist organization by the El-Sisi government; while in our fieldwork, we steered clear of any interviewees who might have connections with the security forces. Without the commitment and courage of the Egyptian team, it would have been impossible to continue with this part of the project.
In Kenya also, the situation turned out to be more volatile than anticipated. The terror attacks on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi in September 2013 had led to increased securitization and the further marginalization of the Somali community (the attackers were of Somali origin). We decided to include the resulting inter-communal conflict in our research portfolio, even though approaching Somali activists and community leaders turned out to be extremely challenging and required the researchers on the ground to show an extraordinary level of flexibility and sensitivity to context.
Meanwhile, South Africa witnessed a wave of student protests in 2015–16 triggered by the government’s decision to increase university fees. The movement soon turned to other issues—most notably, de-colonialization of the curriculum and university structures. Besides pulling down statues and boycotting teaching, the protests radicalized and eventually brought all university activities to a standstill. These events fell into a crucial phase of the project, and as a consequence, it became extremely difficult to recruit student assistants to support the fieldwork. The South African team persevered and even managed to organize the final project meeting at the University of Cape Town.
In comparison, Serbia appeared like a haven of ...