The Social Requisites of Democracy Revisited

Abstract

The recent expansion of democracy, what Samuel Huntington (1991) has called „the third wave,“ started in the mid-1970s, first in southern Europe, then throughout Latin America and Asian countries like Korea, Thailand and the Philippines in the early and mid-1980s, as well as in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and parts of sub-Saharan Africa in the same period. Not long ago, the overwhelming majority of the members of the United Nations had authoritarian systems. As of 1993 over half, 99 out of 186 countries, have competitive elections and various guarantees of political and individual rights, over twice the number two decades earlier in 1970 ( Freedom Review , 1993, 3–4, 10). Democracy is weakest in Islamic countries, where, as will be discussed later, few nations are democratic, and in parts of Africa. However, through not fully democratic, „more than 30 African countries are in the process of transition from an authoritarian civilian or military government to one that is more pluralistic“ (Schneidman, 1992, 1; Diamond, 1992b, 38–39; Diamond, 1993b 3–4).*