Spring Break
UConn hosts democracy conference
Garon Scott
Issue date: 3/2/09 Section: News
UConn played host to the first annual Democracy and Democratization Conference Friday and Saturday, attracting 50 experts from 10 different countries and all corners of the United States to discuss a diverse array of issues relating to democracy around the world.
The conference, which was organized by the university's political science graduate students, featured 10 separate panels covering topics such as democracy in Asia, eastern and western Europe, and the Americas, the role of citizens in a democracy, and many subjects in between. It also featured two keynote addresses, the first from Yale Sterling Professor Ian Shapiro, who spoke Friday on the topic of luck, leadership, and legitimacy in a country's transition to democracy.
Shapiro compared the long struggle for democracy in South Africa to the ongoing struggles in the Middle East. He said that, although it may be impossible to perfectly predict exactly when and where democracy will arise, it is feasible to assess the factors that add to or detract from their possibility.
"The path to democracy in one era is never the same as in another," Shapiro told the audience. "Where nations like England had 100 years to develop into a democracy with full rights for its citizens, countries are now expected to go from a completely different form of government to a full-scale democracy instantaneously."
Shapiro's lecture touched on a wide range of topics, but was always grounded in what he said were the three most important factors in the fate of a fledgling democracy - luck, the dynamic between a country's leaders and its people, and the dynamic between a country's leaders and other world leaders.
"Leaders must be risk tolerant. They must be willing to take action that, if unsuccessful, will mean the end of their political careers," Shapiro said.
He also noted that for a democracy to take firm root, it must be supported by both the powerful upper class and the larger lower class, and that a democracy cannot succeed if it is forced on an unwilling nation by an outside force.
The conference, which was organized by the university's political science graduate students, featured 10 separate panels covering topics such as democracy in Asia, eastern and western Europe, and the Americas, the role of citizens in a democracy, and many subjects in between. It also featured two keynote addresses, the first from Yale Sterling Professor Ian Shapiro, who spoke Friday on the topic of luck, leadership, and legitimacy in a country's transition to democracy.
Shapiro compared the long struggle for democracy in South Africa to the ongoing struggles in the Middle East. He said that, although it may be impossible to perfectly predict exactly when and where democracy will arise, it is feasible to assess the factors that add to or detract from their possibility.
"The path to democracy in one era is never the same as in another," Shapiro told the audience. "Where nations like England had 100 years to develop into a democracy with full rights for its citizens, countries are now expected to go from a completely different form of government to a full-scale democracy instantaneously."
Shapiro's lecture touched on a wide range of topics, but was always grounded in what he said were the three most important factors in the fate of a fledgling democracy - luck, the dynamic between a country's leaders and its people, and the dynamic between a country's leaders and other world leaders.
"Leaders must be risk tolerant. They must be willing to take action that, if unsuccessful, will mean the end of their political careers," Shapiro said.
He also noted that for a democracy to take firm root, it must be supported by both the powerful upper class and the larger lower class, and that a democracy cannot succeed if it is forced on an unwilling nation by an outside force.
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