His conclusion is that the most important factor in whether a democratic transition succeeds or fails is the existence of a strong conservative party (in the sense of a party upholding the pre-democratic status quo of power) that can successfully compete in elections and develops a stake in the democratic system. This is quite consistent with the articles I previously reviewed that presented the hypothesis that liberal democracy consists of three bundles of rights -- property rights, political rights (i.e., majority rule) and civil rights (the rights of minority identity groups). Electoral democracy is compromise between the ruling elite and the general public -- the general public agrees to respect property rights in return for the ruling elite's agreement to respect majority rule. How to incorporate civil rights and go from electoral democracy to liberal democracy is a trickier matter.
The article emphasize liberal democracy, Zimblatt's work might better be understood on how countries achieve electoral democracy and agrees with the general framework that it is a bargain between the governing elite and the general population -- to respect property rights in return for majority rule. Zimblatt's basic thesis is that the governing elite is only confident enough in its property rights to allow majority rule if it has a strong conservative party that can compete electorally. Without such a party, the ruling elite will invariably sabotage electoral democracy.
Zimblatt offers two contrasting cases from the 19th century -- a successful democratic transition in England and an unsuccessful transition in Germany. A few words of caution are in order here. Zimblatt's book appears to be written for professional historians, not for the general public. It presupposes the reader knows a great deal more about the political parties and major issues of 19th century Britain and Germany than any ordinary American is likely to know, and it contains all sorts of charts, graphs and equations that make the average reader's eyes glaze over.
Nonetheless, he makes some very interesting points. First, it is clear that the threefold definition of conservatism we see in the US -- upholding existing distributions of wealth, traditional social values, and nationalistic foreign policy -- are not limited to the US but have been the general pattern in Europe as well. As in the US, traditional social values and nationalistic foreign policy have a lot more public support than upholding existing distributions of wealth.
Another very important point is his definition of a "strong" conservative party. Essentially he sees a strong conservative party as one with with electoral appeal, and with an institutional interest in upholding democracy. This means strong enough ties to the voters to know what appeals to them, enough flexibility to adopt to what is a winning platform, the sort of political machine that is deeply entwined with the election system and creates conservative elites with a vested interest in the survival of democracy, and institutions strong enough to hold anti-democratic elements on the right in check. (More on that last later). A "weak" conservative party is one that is too small to compete, or too divided to compete, or can only win by rigging the system. Parties of this kind will be tempted to make common cause with outside interest groups and the radical right. (Again, more on that later).
And third, the first time the conservative party loses, crisis will ensue. Whether the democratic transition is successful depends on whether the conservative party is able to accept defeat and live to fight another day. Unsurprisingly, that depends on the party's "strength."*
In the case of Britain, Zimblatt describes in greater detail than the lay reader can follow how the Conservative Party built a mass party machine, how it attracted members by organizing an entertainment association with a political tinge, and how it appealed to social and religious conservatism and national strength. Democratic transition proceeded smoothly for roughly 20 years (1884-1906), so long as the Conservatives held power. In 1906, the Liberals won a sweeping victory, which they held onto in 1910. The Liberals offered home rule to Ireland and began to implement a welfare state, supported by aggressive taxes, and Conservatives began to panic. Crisis struck. Conservatives began to talk of resorting to extra-legal methods, even military coup. The Conservative Party began losing control of the radical right -- in this case, mostly North Irish Protestants fearful of their future in an autonomous Catholic Ireland.
In the end, though, the Conservatives recognized that, while fighting on economic issues was an electoral loser, protecting North Ireland from being handed over to the Catholics resonated and could be used to win back seats. Once it became clear that the Conservatives were still competitive, the parties reached a compromise on Ireland. The political crisis was then shelved when WWI broke out. Thereafter, the Conservatives acted as a model democratic party, respecting the rights of their opponents when they won, conceding defeat when they lost, and even accepting victory by the Labour Party, then seen as dangerously radical. Conservatives recognized that the Labour Party, if shut out of power, really would become radicalized, and that if allowed to win, it would split the left.
Zimblatt contrasts this with 19th century Germany. The German Conservative Party never built a mass base, an electoral machine, or any method of polling the public on what were winning issues. Instead, it relied on the local aristocracy, which used fraud and economic coercion to ensure the support of rural voters. German elites were divided between Catholics in the south and Protestants in the north and unable to form a conservative coalition. The German Conservatives also lacked the strong institutional party to keep out special interests or the radical right, who gain inordinate influence as a result. Conservatives also manipulated the levers of the state to sway elections in their direction. The result, Zimblatt argues, was that governing elites did not dare allow true democratization because they would not be able to compete.
The old system was overthrown at the end of WWI, of course, and so began the Weimar Republic, seen as a sort of archetype of how democracies fail. Once again, Zimblatt attributes this failure to the absence of a strong conservative party. Its most stable time occurred from 1924 to 1928, when a conservative coalition was in power. The party of the German right the German National Volkspartei (DNVP) was divided between radical and moderate wings. In power, the moderate wing began to predominate and make its peace with democracy.
Zimblatt argues that the true turning point that doomed Weimar was not the Great Depression, but the election of 1928 when the DNVP lost badly, its electoral share falling from 20.5 percent to 14.5 percent. Defeat radicalized the party, causing its moderate wing to lose all control over the activists. Zimblatt attributes this to the weakness of the central party apparatus versus the much stronger organization of its grassroots activists. This led to the fragmentation of the German Right into numerous competing parties and the ultimate triumph of you-know-who.
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*Another highly significant point he makes is that democratic breakthroughs, such as we saw in Germany in 1918, in Eastern Europe in 1989, in Russia in 1992, and in Tunisia and Egypt in 2011, though they may be inspiring, usually do not bode well for the future and are normally followed by serious democratic backsliding. Truly successful democratic transitions take place quietly, without dramatic breakthroughs, but also without backsliding.
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