With democracy becoming the global norm, the field of democratization studies has boomed in the last quarter of a century. While early research focused on transitions, over time scholars have begun to pay closer attention to the performance of emerging democracies. Arguably, the major empirical finding of this latter research has been that, while the majority of these new regimes exhibit democratic features such as free and fair elections, a significant number of them deviate from standards and practices that are inherent in the very idea of democratic rule.
About the Authors
Hector E. Schamis
Hector E. Schamis teaches in the School of International Service at American University in Washington, D.C. He has written on democratization and market reform in Latin America and ex-communist countries. His current research is on the construction of democratic citizenship in old and new democracies.
A grim narrative of the years since 1989 has buoyed Eastern and Central Europe’s populist parties in their rise to power. To win back voters, liberals must tell a more…
How are trends in global democratization likely to be shaped by the distribution of such key structural factors as income, ethnic or religious diversity, and the quality of the state?
Democracy has held its own or gained ground in just about every part of the world except for the Arab Middle East. Why has this crucial region remained such infertile…
