ABSTRACT
Similarly, Giuseppe di Palma (1990) contends that the key to launching a successful democracy is a ‘negotiated transition’, whereby all major players participate in the discussions, even those who may have also participated in undermining democracy previously or were leaders in the previous nondemocratic regime. For di Palma, the important point is that the old elite from the non-democratic regime must be given an opportunity to compete in the new political system because otherwise they will not cooperate with the new order. Moreover, the rules themselves must be designed such that these old elite believe themselves to have a realistic opportunity of continuing to govern. This chapter extends this general idea and argues that no matter what the role of elites in the previous regime, they must be allowed to negotiate the rules of the new regime; otherwise, as di Palma points out, they have strong incentives to attempt to undermine the system at every opportunity, or to withhold support at crucial times.
