Search results

Introduction -- The triumphs and travails of democracy -- The democratic moment -- The role of human rights -- The links between liberalism and democracy -- Why liberalism became democratic -- Globalization and self-government -- Understanding the European Union -- Sovereignty and democracy -- Two kinds of internationalism -- The democratic moment revisited

Thanks to Samuel P. Huntington's classic study The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century , the 1974 Portuguese Revolution has come to be acknowledged as the starting point of the cascade of transitions that Huntington dubbed democracy's "third wave." There may well be new transitions to democracy, but there are also likely to be new reversals that will more or less balance them out. The magnitude of democratic change brought by the third wave—the era par excellence of democratic transitions—is unlikely to be matched in the future.

In recent years, the use of the term "governance" has risen exponentially, often replacing the kindred term government. While the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably, many scholars have sought to distinguish them by giving "governance" a broader and less political meaning. This approach, however, tends to underestimate the essential role of the state and to overlook the central importance of politics. On the whole, democracies tend to be better governed than autocracies, but there are exceptions to this rule. The distinction between good and bad government has long been understood by people everywhere, even in societies where there has been no notion of popular participation. The relationship between democracy and good governance is a very complex one, and a serious analysis of it leads toward the realm of political philosophy.