The collapse of Communism has created the opportunity for democracy to spread from
Prague to the Baltic and Black Seas. But the alternatives—dictatorship or totalitarian rule …

Fifteen years after regime change swept across the former Soviet bloc and contrary to the
widely held hopes and expectations at that time, liberal democracy has emerged and taken …

The last quarter of the twentieth century was marked by two dramatic political trends that
altered many of the world's regimes: the global resurgence of democracy and the collapse of …

Democracy and Authoritarianism in the Postcommunist World examines three waves of
democratic change that took place in eleven different former Communist nations. It draws …

Why did the wave of democracy that swept the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe
starting more than a decade ago develop in ways unexpected by observers who relied on …

The collapse of communism was widely heralded as the dawn of democracy across the
former Soviet region. However, the political outcome has been much less uniform. The post …

" Democracy is not just a matter of constitutions, parliaments, elections, parties, and the rule
of law. In order to see if or how democracy works, we must attend to what people make of it …

Transitions toward democracy in countries once ruled by communism almost invariably are
described as “troubled” or “painful.” However appropriate such adjectives might be, and …

Ten years after the collapse of the Soviet empire, one thing is clear: The word
“postcommunism” has lost its relevance. The fact that Hungary and Albania, or the Czech …

A precondition of democratic consolidation is what Giovanni Sartori calls the “taming” of
politics so that it “no longer kills” and stops being a “warlike affair.” 1 This is first and foremost …