A must-read for all those who care about the fate of the world's youngest democratic states.

The recent backlash against democracy in such countries as Bolivia, Venezuela, Russia, and Georgia poses renewed concerns about the viability of this regime type in the developing world. Drawing on a unique data set of every democratization episode since 1960, this book explores the underlying reasons for backsliding and reversal in the world's fledgling democracies and offers some proposals with respect to what the international community might do to help these states stay on track toward political stability. Rejecting earlier scholarship on this topic, Kapstein and Converse argue that the core of the problem is found in the weak institutions that have been built in much of the developing world, which encourage leaders to abuse their power. Understanding the underlying reasons for democratic failure is essential if we are to offer policy recommendations that have any hope of making a difference on the ground.

This paper identifies systematic performance differences between younger and older democracies: younger democracies are more corrupt; exhibit less rule of law, lower levels of bureaucratic quality, and lower secondary school enrollments; and spend more on public investment and government workers. Only one theory explains the effects of democratic age on the wide range of policy outcomes examined here-the inability of political competitors in younger democracies to make credible promises to citizens. This explanation, first advanced in Keefer and Vlaicu (2004), offers a concrete interpretation of what political institutionalization might mean, and why it is that young democracies frequently fail to become older and well-performing democracies. A variety of tests support this explanation against alternatives. The effect of democratic age remains large even after controlling for the possibilities that voters are less well-informed in young democracies, that young democracies have systematically different political and electoral institutions, or that young democracies exhibit more polarized societies.

How elites influenced major electoral reform in the emerging democracy of Indonesia

Institutionalization has become a paramount concept to compare party systems in regions spanned by the third wave of democratization. Based on raw electoral data from 30 sub-Saharan African countries observed between 1966 and 2016, this text explores the causes and mechanisms of Party System Institutionalization (PSI) and its relationship with the processes of mobilization and democratization. Posing key theoretical and empirical questions in cross-regional comparison, it examines and reveals the defining properties of PSI, how they should be measured and under what conditions it varies. In doing so, it contributes with a new explanatory framework of party system development – that gives primacy to modes of transition, political institutions and party-citizen linkages – to further cross-regional comparisons among third-wave party systems. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of democratization, elections, and African politics, and more broadly to comparative politics.

This paper identifies systematic performance differences between younger and older democracies: younger democracies are more corrupt; exhibit less rule of law, lower levels of bureaucratic quality, and lower secondary school enrollments; and spend more on public investment and government workers. Only one theory explains the effects of democratic age on the wide range of policy outcomes examined here-the inability of political competitors in younger democracies to make credible promises to citizens. This explanation, first advanced in Keefer and Vlaicu (2004), offers a concrete interpretation of what political institutionalization might mean, and why it is that young democracies frequently fail to become older and well-performing democracies. A variety of tests support this explanation against alternatives. The effect of democratic age remains large even after controlling for the possibilities that voters are less well-informed in young democracies, that young democracies have systematically different political and electoral institutions, or that young democracies exhibit more polarized societies.

Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy highlights the use of religious identity to fuel the rise of illiberal, nationalist, and populist democracy. In Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy, David Elcott, C. Colt Anderson, Tobias Cremer, and Volker Haarmann present a pragmatic and modernist exploration of how religion engages in the public square. Elcott and his co-authors are concerned about the ways religious identity is being used to foster the exclusion of individuals and communities from citizenship, political representation, and a role in determining public policy. They examine the ways religious identity is weaponized to fuel populist revolts against a political, social, and economic order that values democracy in a global and strikingly diverse world. Included is a history and political analysis of religion, politics, and policies in Europe and the United States that foster this illiberal rebellion. The authors explore what constitutes a constructive religious voice in the political arena, even in nurturing patriotism and democracy, and what undermines and threatens liberal democracies. To lay the groundwork for a religious response, the book offers chapters showing how Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism can nourish liberal democracy. The authors encourage people of faith to promote foundational support for the institutions and values of the democratic enterprise from within their own religious traditions and to stand against the hostility and cruelty that historically have resulted when religious zealotry and state power combine. Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy is intended for readers who value democracy and are concerned about growing threats to it, and especially for people of faith and religious leaders, as well as for scholars of political science, religion, and democracy.