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Since its inception, the Journal of Democracy has served as the premier venue for scholarship on democratization. The newest volume in the acclaimed Journal of Democracy book series, Democracy: A Reader brings together the seminal works that have appeared in its pages in nearly twenty years of publication.

Democracy is in retreat around the world, giving renewed relevance and urgency to fundamental questions about the system that nevertheless remains the ideal standard of governance. Contributors ask: What exactly is democracy, and what sustains it? What...

In this book noted political sociologist Larry Diamond sets forth a distinctive theoretical perspective on democratic evolution and consolidation in the late twentieth century. Rejecting theories that posit preconditions for democracy--and thus dismiss its prospects in poor countries--Diamond argues instead for a -developmental- theory of democracy. This, he explains, is one which views democracy everywhere as a work in progress that emerges piecemeal, at different rates, in different ways and forms, in different countries.

Diamond begins by assessing the -third wave- of global...

In their introduction to the 1998 edition of Democracy in East Asia, Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner predicted that East Asia, with its remarkable diversity of political regimes, economies, and religions, would likely be the most critical arena in the global struggle for democracy, a prediction that has proven prescient. Although the recent political upheavals in the Middle East have understandably grabbed the world's attention, there is reason to doubt whether the overthrow of some authoritarian regimes there will lead to the establishment of stable democracies any time soon. On...

At a time when democracy seems to be in retreat in many parts of the world, Africa presents a more mixed picture. A number of African countries have been convulsed by high-profile crises, while others have quietly continued making progress on the difficult path toward democratic stability.

Democratization in Africa: Progress and Retreat brings into focus the complex landscape of African politics by pairing broad analytical surveys with country-specific case studies--most previously published in the Journal of Democracy and all written by prominent Africanists with...

The overthrow in January 1966 of Nigeria's First Republic erased what had been regarded as perhaps the most promising prospect for liberal democracy in post-colonial Africa. Marking the sweeping failure of parliamentary institutions across a continent of new nations, it accelerated the slide into a ghastly civil war.

Class, Ethnicity and Democracy is the first scholarly study to analyze the evolution, decay, and failure of Nigeria's First Republic and to weigh this crucial experience against theories of the conditions for stable democratic government. Rejecting explanations...

"Meticulous . . . Diamond] gleaned that . . . the fate of democracy was not driven by events but by the passion of individual people."--The New York Times Book Review

In 1974, nearly three-quarters of all countries were dictatorships; today, more than half are democracies. Yet recent efforts to promote democracy have stumbled, and many democratic governments are faltering.

In this sweeping vision for advancing freedom around the world, renowned social scientist Larry Diamond examines how and why democracy progresses. He demonstrates that the desire for democracy...

"Chilling--and often scathing--detail . . . Should be read by anyone interested in understanding why the United States' quick military victory has given way to an increasingly virulent insurgency."--The New York Times

In the fall of 2003, Stanford professor Larry Diamond received a call from Condoleezza Rice, asking if he would spend several months in Baghdad as an adviser to the American occupation authorities. Diamond had not been a supporter of the war in Iraq, but he felt that the task of building a viable democracy was a worthy goal. But when he went to Iraq, his...

This book evaluates the global status and prospects of democracy, with an emphasis on the quality of democratic institutions and the effectiveness of governance as key conditions for stable democracy. Bringing together a wide range of the author's work over the past three decades, it advances a framework for assessing the quality of democracy and it analyzes alternative measures of democracy. Drawing on the most recent data from Freedom House, it assesses the global state of democracy and freedom, as of the beginning of 2015, and it explains why the world has been experiencing a mild but...

This book evaluates the global status and prospects of democracy, with an emphasis on the quality of democratic institutions and the effectiveness of governance as key conditions for stable democracy. Bringing together a wide range of the author's work over the past three decades, it advances a framework for assessing the quality of democracy and it analyzes alternative measures of democracy. Drawing on the most recent data from Freedom House, it assesses the global state of democracy and freedom, as of the beginning of 2015, and it explains why the world has been experiencing a mild but...

The latest volume in this popular series focuses on the best ways to evaluate and improve the quality of new democratic regimes. The essays in part one elaborate and refine several themes of democratic quality: the rule of law, accountability, freedom, equality, and responsiveness. The second part features six comparative cases, each of which applies these thematic elements to two neighboring countries: Brazil and Chile, South Africa and Ghana, Italy and Spain, Romania and Poland, India and Bangladesh, and Taiwan and Korea.

Contributors: David Beetham, University of Leeds;...

New Challenges for Maturing Democracies in Korea and Taiwan takes a creative and comparative view of the new challenges and dynamics confronting these maturing democracies.

Numerous works deal with political change in the two societies individually, but few adopt a comparative approach--and most focus mainly on the emergence of democracy or the politics of the democratization processes. This book, utilizing a broad, interdisciplinary approach, pays careful attention to post-democratization phenomena and the key issues that arise in maturing democracies.

What emerges...

For almost a decade, Freedom House's annual survey has highlighted a decline in democracy in most regions of the globe. While some analysts draw upon this evidence to argue that the world has entered a -democratic recession, - others dispute that interpretation, emphasizing instead democracy's success in maintaining the huge gains it made during the last quarter of the twentieth century.

Discussion of this question has moved beyond disputes about how many countries should be classified as democratic to embrace a host of wider concerns about the health of democracy: the poor economic...

Over the past decade, illiberal powers have become emboldened and gained influence within the global arena. Leading authoritarian countries--including China, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela--have developed new tools and strategies to contain the spread of democracy and challenge the liberal international political order. Meanwhile, the advanced democracies have retreated, failing to respond to the threat posed by the authoritarians.

As undemocratic regimes become more assertive, they are working together to repress civil society while tightening their grip on cyberspace...

Political parties are one of the core institutions of democracy. But in democracies around the world--rich and poor, Western and non-Western--there is growing evidence of low or declining public confidence in parties. In membership, organization, and popular involvement and commitment, political parties are not what they used to be. But are they in decline, or are they simply changing their forms and functions? In contrast to authors of most previous works on political parties, which tend to focus exclusively on long-established Western democracies, the contributors to this volume cover...

Beginning in December 2010, a series of uprisings swept the Arab world, toppling four longtime leaders and creating an apparent political opening in a region long impervious to the -third wave- of democratization. Despite the initial euphoria, the legacies of authoritarianism--polarized societies, politicized militaries, state-centric economies, and pervasive clientelism--have proven stubborn obstacles to the fashioning of new political and social contracts. Meanwhile, the strong electoral performance of political Islamists and the ensuing backlash in Egypt have rekindled arguments about...

What happens when vote buying becomes a means of social policy? Although one could cynically ask this question just as easily about the United States's mature democracy, Diego Abente Brun and Larry Diamond ask this question about democracies in the developing world through an assessment of political clientelism, or what is commonly known as patronage.

Studies of political clientelism, whether deployed through traditional vote-buying techniques or through the politicized use of social spending, were a priority in the 1970s, when democratization efforts around the world flourished....