Contents:
1. Introduction: Debate on the Causes of Democratization
2. Resource Distribution Theory of Democratization
3. Measures of Democracy
4. Explanatory Variables
5. A review of Democratization
6. Correlation Analysis
7. Regression Analysis
8. Analysis of Single Countries
9. Conclusions

"Prospects of Democracy" is the most extensive comparative survey of the state and conditions of democracy ever made. It covers 172 contemporary states, with historical data on the measures of democracy and on explanatory variables extending back to the 1850s.
Presenting a comprehensive exploration of democratization, its successes and failures, Tatu Vanhanen makes predictions on the prospects for democracy for single countries and for seven regions of the world. Never satisfied with presenting merely his own data, Vanhanen includes contributions from five commentators: Mitchell A. Seligson on Latin America; Samuel Decalo and John W. Forje on Africa; John Henderson on Oceania and Ilter Turan on why some of the countries that pass Vanhanen's democratic threshold cannot in fact be seen as democracies.

Vanhanen provides the most extensive comparative survey of the state and conditions of democracy ever made, with historical data and explanatory variables extending back to the 1850s, and with forecasts covering seven regions of the world.

The sudden and dramatic democratization of Eastern Europe during 1989-90 was something that had not been predicted by political scientists. This text is a response to those events, in that it seeks to provide some theoretical explanations for the process of democratization in Eastern Europe and compare that experience with the democratic transitions experienced in other parts of the world. The contributions focus on the causal factors of democratization and are organized into three main sections. In the first, the process of democratization is analyzed from the domestic perspective of the countries concerned and this approach includes the investigation of long-term structural changes and historical factors. In the second, attention is focused on the struggles of social and political structures and on the emergence of multi-party and new electoral systems. The final part investigates how far democratization was influenced by external factors and considers in particular the role of reform in the Soviet Union under Gorbachev and the appeal of Western social, political and economic systems.

Democratization has been spreading rapidly since the 1980's, breaking barriers, and gaining a foothold in new territories, although not with equal success in all parts of the world. This book examines the strategies used in the struggle for democracy and problems of democratization in different parts of the world. The examination is based on the idea that conscious choices of people and their leaders matter and that better knowledge of successful and unsuccessful strategies might help people to adopt more rational strategies in the struggle for democracy. Comparatively examining over 8 states including South Korea, Nigeria, Hungary, the Soviet Union and China, the contributors are prescriptive rather than descriptive in suggesting methods of achieving democratization.

Democratization has been spreading rapidly since the 1980's, breaking barriers, and gaining a foothold in new territories, although not with equal success in all parts of the world. This book examines the strategies used in the struggle for democracy and problems of democratization in different parts of the world. The examination is based on the idea that conscious choices of people and their leaders matter and that better knowledge of successful and unsuccessful strategies might help people to adopt more rational strategies in the struggle for democracy. Comparatively examining over 8 states including South Korea, Nigeria, Hungary, the Soviet Union and China, the contributors are prescriptive rather than descriptive in suggesting methods of achieving democratization.

Contents:
Introduction, Geoffrey Pridham and Tatu Vanhanen, Part One: Political Change in Historical and Structural Perspective 1. Democractic transitions in theory and practice: Southern European lessons for eastern Europe, Geoffrey Pridham 2. Groups, parties and political change in eastern Europe from 1977, Michael Waller 3. Predicting and explaining democratization in eastern Europe, Tatu Vanhanen and Richard Kimber Part Two: Emerging Party Systems and Institutions 4. Building party systems after the dictatorship: the east European cases in a comparative perspective, Maurizio Cotta 5. The founding electoral systems in Eastern Europe, 1989-1991, Kimmo Kuusela, 6. The emergence of multi-party systems in east-central Europe: a comparative analysis, Paul Lewis, Bill Lomax and Gordon Wightman^M, Part Three: The External Dimension 7. The Soviet Union and eastern Europe, 1988-89: interactions between domestic change and foreign policy, Tomas Niklasson 8. Democratization in eastern Europe: the external dimension, Adrian Hyde-Price Conclusion Geoffrey Pridham and Tatu Vanhanen

The principal idea of this study is to investigate to what extent it is possible to explain the emergence of ethnic conflicts and the variation in the degree of ethnic conflicts by our assumed predisposition to ethnic nepotism, not to find explanations for all ethnic conflicts.