A review of Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe, by Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan.
About the Author
Philippe C. Schmitter,professor emeritus in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute, previously taught at the University of Chicago and Stanford University. He is the coeditor (with Guillermo O’Donnell and Laurence Whitehead) of the seminal four-volume series Transitions from Authoritarian Rule.
Future state-building missions must learn from the failure of past U.S. interventions: It is critical to work with local power-brokers rather than relying on a centralized state.
Voters around the world are losing faith in democracy’s ability to deliver and increasingly turning toward more authoritarian alternatives. To restore citizens’ confidence, democracies must show they can make progress…
