Democratic Theory afterTransitions from Authoritarian Rule

In: Perspectives on politics, Band 9, Heft 2, S. 333-343

Abstract

Recent events across the globe make clear the complexities of the politics of "democratization" and the importance of developing nuanced and compelling understandings of these complexities. In Eurasia, "Color Revolutions" have given way to democratic disappointments and "authoritarian regimes." In north Africa, an unanticipated upsurge of democratic movements has felled autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt, but the political outcomes of these "transitions" are very much in doubt. Contemporary political science has developed an elaborate vocabulary for understanding such processes. And this vocabulary owes a great deal to a small group of scholars—Juan Linz, Guillermo O'Donnell, Philippe Schmitter, Alfred Stepan and Adam Przeworksi—who helped to lay the theoretical foundations of our current understanding of politics around the globe.