Democratic Transitions (exploring The Structural Sources Of The Fourth Wave)

“ This thoughtful, well-structured and well argued work makes an intriguing contribution ...Doorenspleet measures waves of democracy in original and insightful ways.” - Andreas Schedler, CIDE With the widespread movement towards democratization that characterized the first post- Cold War decade, why did some non democratic regimes undergo a transition toward a democratic political system, but other not? Why have some transitions succeeded completely, but others resulted in only limited political reform? Renske Doorenspleet addresses these questions, providing a systematic theoretical and empirical analysis of variations in transitions to democracy. Doorenspleet interweaves a discussion of key concepts, the major theoretical approaches to democratization, and statistical analyses to illuminate the influence of structural - primarily economic and social- factors on democratic transitons. She also explores the notion of “waves” of democratization. Though focusing on the 1989-2001 period, she offers a wealth of new evidence covering two centuries of democratic transitions around the globe. About Author: Renske Doorenspleet is a research fellow in the Department of Political Science at Leiden University.