Comment: What led to democratisation of the Maldives?

The first multi-party Presidential election of 2008 in the Maldives marked an end to the 30-year authoritarian regime of President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and saw the installation of a democratic government. However, since the coup in 2012, Maldives is on a rocky road in its democratisation process.

Taking the advice of a close friend of mine who stated that, “if several different people don’t write about the significant events changing their societies, romanticization of, and myths around, those events creep in, and that is one way unreal heroes and unreal villains are born”, I have attempted to write some of my understanding of the democratisation process in the Maldives. As such, in an earlier piece, I have explored how democratisation occurred in the Maldives.

The aim of this piece is to identify the major factors that could explain why democratisation occurs in the first place. Scholars in the past have developed various theories that explain the democratisation of a country. These include the deepening legitimacy issues of authoritarian systems due to the wider acceptance of democratic values, rapid economic growth, and changing policies of international actors towards democracy. I argue that modernisation and international pressure for democratic reforms were the major factors that led to democratisation in the Maldives and assess here how both factors contributed to democratisation in the Maldives.