| Abstract: | Abstract The transition and subsequent consolidation of countries that move from an authoritarian to a democratic regime have been widely explained by factors such as the international environment, economic conditions, political culture, institutions, and most prominently, elite behavior.1 But although elites can make decisions about the institutional, political, and economic future of a country in transition, they cannot guarantee that those decisions will be implemented or supported by the populace, or that the incipient democratic system will stabilize. What is frequently neglected in these elite-centered accounts of democratic transitions, then, is civil society and its links to elites. |
