Review of Democracy and Its Alternatives: Understanding Post-Communist Societies, by Richard Rose, William Mishler, and Christian Haerpfer.
About the Author
Krzysztof Jasiewicz is professor of sociology at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. In the 1990s, he was the founder of electoral studies at the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Those who argue that democracy requires preconditions often cite the example of gradual unfolding set by the established democracies. A glance at history, however, shows that even today's most placid…
