Drawn from outstanding articles published in the "Journal of
Democracy," "The Global Divergence of Democracies" follows the
enthusiastically received earlier volume, "The Global Resurgence of
Democracy."
The tremendous momentum of democratic expansion that
characterized the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s has drawn
to a halt. Significantly, this halt has not yet been followed by a
"reverse wave"of democratic breakdowns, and democracy remains
unchallenged as a global model and ideal of governance. The values
of freedom, human rights, and popular sovereignty have continued to
gain strength in the world. The first section of "The Global
Divergence of Democracies" presents a few outstanding examples of
the accumulating body of argument and evidence in favor of the
universality of democratic principles and their basic compatibility
with diverse religious and cultural traditions.
Nonetheless, in practice, the performance of the world's newer
democracies has become increasingly varied, a trend reflected in
the title of this volume: "The Global Divergence of Democracies."
The divergence in the quality or depth of democracy is matched by a
parallel divergence in progress toward the consolidation of
democracy. The second section of this volume is devoted to the
hotly contested debate among leading scholars of comparative
democracy of the utility and meaning of the concept of
consolidation.
A third section examines some of the key building blocks of
successful democracy, including political party systems, elections,
federalism, the rule of law, a market economy, an independent
judiciary, and civilian control of the military. The volume
concludes with a series of appraisals of the divergent paths that
democracy is taking both among and within various regions of the
world, as well as in such key countries as Russia and China. With
contributions by more than thirty of the world's leading scholars
of democracy, this volume presents the most comprehensive
assessment available of the state of democracy in the world at the
beginning of the new millennium.
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