The End of the Transition Paradigm

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  "authors": [
    "Thomas Carothers"
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    "Carnegie Endowment for International Peace"
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  "collections": [
    "Democracy and Governance"
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  "primaryCenter": "Carnegie Endowment for International Peace",
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    "Democracy, Conflict, and Governance"
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Other

The End of the Transition Paradigm

By Thomas Carothers

Published on Jan 16, 2002

Source: Journal of Democracy

Thomas Carothers writes that democracy promoters and academics need to abandon the long-held transition paradigm in the face of disappointing trends in the last decade.

" In the last quarter of the twentieth century, trends in seven different regions converged to change the political landscape of the world: 1) the fall of right-wing authoritarian regimes in Southern Europe in the mid- 1970s; 2) the replacement of military dictatorships by elected civilian governments across Latin America from the late 1970s through the late 1980s; 3) the decline of authoritarian rule in parts of East and South Asia starting in the mid-1980s; 4) the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s; 5) the breakup of the Soviet Union and the establishment of 15 post-Soviet republics in 1991; 6) the decline of one-party regimes in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa in the first half of the 1990s; and 7) a weak but recognizable liberalizing trend in some Middle Eastern countries in the 1990s..."

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About the Author

Thomas Carothers

Harvey V. Fineberg Chair for Democracy Studies; Director, Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program

Thomas Carothers, director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program, is a leading expert on comparative democratization and international support for democracy.

Recent Work

Commentary
When Do Mass Protests Topple Autocrats?
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Article
The Trump Administration’s Tangled Talk About Democracy Abroad
- Thomas Carothers, McKenzie Carrier

Political Reform Democracy North America United States

Carnegie India does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.

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