ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the ways that progressive, outsider-led post-neoliberal democratization processes may impact on democratic quality and a novel progressive/regressive/authoritarian centralization continuum is developed. Next, the historical analytic framework is outlined. The framework calls for analysis of factors present before the elections of outsiders that may influence not only the type of outsider that is elected, but that may also feed back onto the processes following election such as the histories of popular sector mobilization and the early relationships between progressive-outsiders and grassroots protesters. While antecedent factors matter for the directions that processes take, the framework calls for analysis of how historical factors interact with emergent relative power struggles between the left-led government, opposition blocs, and popular sector organizations, shaping the pathways and outcomes of progressive-outsider-led processes. The novel conceptualization and framework advanced in the chapter offer new tools to democratization theorists to grasp the nuanced, paradoxical empirical realities of processes that entail simultaneous democratizing and de-democratizing features.
