The Myth of the Democratic Recession

April 2, 2015

On the occasion of its 25th anniversary, the Journal of Democracy recently posed the question to its readers: “Is Democracy in Decline?”

Our own Lucan Way and colleague Steven Levitsky, of Harvard, argue that much of the excitement over the rapid democratization of the world in the 1990s was over-hyped. For example, the collapse of communism did not, on its own, guarantee democracy would quickly take root in countries lacking the necessary institutional capacity or tradition. This discussion has recently been picked up in an article in Maclean’s Magazine that can be read here.