Forging Democracy from Below

The recent replacement of authoritarian rule by democracy in both South Africa and El Salvador poses a puzzle: why did the powerful and fervently anti-democratic elites of these countries abandon death squads, apartheid, and the other tools of political repression and take a chance on democracy? Forging Democracy from Below, first published in 2000, shows how popular mobilization - in El Salvador an effective guerilla army supported by peasant collaboration and in South Africa a powerful alliance of labor unions and poor urban dwellers - eventually forced the elite to the bargaining table, and why both a durable settlement and democratic government were the result. Using interviews with both insurgent and elite actors as well as statistical analysis of macroeconomic developments, Elisabeth Wood documents an 'insurgent path to democracy' and challenges the view that democracy is the result of compromise among elite factions or the modernizing influence of economic development.

"Sharp-eyed, sure-handed, and knowledgeable, Elisabeth Wood makes a compelling case for the contribution of popular insurgency to democratization. As she pursues it, the unlikely comparison of El Salvador and South Africa yields important and unexpected returns." Chuck Tilly, Columbia University, "Elisabeth Wood has written the single best theoretical explanation of how the enemies in a vicious civil war can agree on a negotiated settlement and move toward political democracy. It marks a major step forward in our understanding of such conflicts. Her skill at using statistical analysis, formal theory, and anthropological fieldwork to confront important theoretical and policy problems is in the best tradition of contemporary social science." Roy Licklider, Rutgers University, "This analytically systematic study blends sound theory and fieldwork. It is an important testament to the utility of rigorous comparative analysis in advancing our understanding of democratic transitions in otherwise markedly dissimilar countries." International Journal of African History, "Elisabeth Wood's rigorous study of individual motivations and mobilization in El Salvador will be required reading for students of collective action and civil war. Her unique combination of rich ethnography and rigorous theory represents social science at its best." Stathis N. Kalyvas, Yale University, "This book addresses an absolutely fundamental question in both social history and the study of revolutions: Under what circumstances and with what motivations do rural people mobilize collectively to achieve change? Building on ethnographic fieldwork and oral histories, Wood argues that the actions of rural people in El Salvador constituted an 'assertion of citizenship' not reducible to any calculation of the probability of altering outcomes or achieving exclusive benefits. With a delicate sense of social process, she demonstrates the 'pleasures of agency' that were possible even in the shadow of civil war. This is an elegant, important, and inspiring study." Rebecca J. Scott, University of Michigan