Democracy in Bhutan: Transition to Consolidation

It is rare for a developing country to have a smooth process of democratisation involving a peaceful transfer of power in successive elections and yet this has been the case in Bhutan. The year 2018 has marked ten years of growing democracy (and democratic consciousness) in Bhutan and this paper will identify the main dynamics of this ongoing democratic consolida6on. Having ethnographically observed the different rounds of the recent 2018 elections, and previously done so for the election in 2008, I will evaluate the effects of non-traditional democratisation in a society emerging into modernity. What have been the key election issues for the various demographic, geographical and ethnic constituencies of the people and how did the different political parties – some new and some established – seek to represent them? Can the defeat of the ruling parties in both the 2013 and 2018 elections be read as maturity of the electorate who do not want a concentration of power in the hands of the few? What have been the changes in the public sphere, the distinguishing ideologies, the policy priorities and the media-scape, between 2008 (when the first elections took place after the top-down voluntarist transition initiated by the fourth king), and now, during the third elections? What are the lessons from Bhutan’s unique experience for the theoretical literature on democratic consolidation? In answering these questions, the paper will seek to theorise and engage with the first decade of democracy in Bhutan.