The first-ever encyclopedic examination of elections and electoral concepts worldwide. Written by a distinguished international team of scholars.

Elections are of fundamental importance in countries around the world, especially as democracy continues to spread. As more and more of the world's people are winning the right to select their leaders in free and competitive elections, many elections are poorly understood by the electorate, as well as by the world at large and electoral institutions vary greatly from country to country.

The International Encyclopedia of Elections is the first and only definitive work to survey elections in independent nations and describe the varied systems and processes in clear language understandable to any interested reader. The encyclopedia will be most useful to undergraduate and graduate students, journalists, political activists, and scholars seeking information outside their specialties or their own countries.

Written in clear, concise language by 70 international scholars in the field, the volume contains more than 150 articles (from Absentee voting to Women: Enfranchisement) ranging in length from a few hundred to several thousand words. The encyclopedia covers each of the more than 170 countries that have held direct elections or national referendums in this decade.

Having undergone a transition from military authoritarian rule in 1987, Korea quickly became the most powerful democracy in East Asia other than Japan. But the onset of a major economic crisis revealed the dark side of the Korean model of democracy. With that crisis, and the subsequent election of the country's most determined opposition figure as president, serious questions have arisen about the new democracy's vitality.

Institutional Reform and Democratic Consolidation in Korea examines the problems and prospects of democracy in Korea a decade after the transition from military authoritarian rule, including the key factors shaping the quality and viability of Korean democracy. The authors evaluate the reform agenda of recent years and explain

-Why the current electoral system is deficient in producing an effective government

-How the current system of local government autonomy is in fact just a variation of past authoritarian central control under the guise of democracy

-Why Korea will remain vulnerable to renewed economic crisis unless it can better address the fundamental structural flaws that hamper its economic competitiveness and the integrity of its financial system

-What steps have been taken to curtail the power of the deeply entrenched military, bureaucratic, and big business domination

-Why the National Assembly is neither autonomous nor capable of managing internal conflicts according to the rules of the democratic game

-How the Korean media moved out from under authoritarian government influence only to become diminished by a new commercialism and sensationalism

-How a new civic mobilization among the people has deepened democracy and contributed to democratic consolidation in Korea

-Why the previous government administration failed to prevent the economic crisis despite signs of troubled economic foundations

-What measures the new government should pursue to resolve the economic crisis and revive this once-prosperous democratic model

Institutional Reform and Democratic Consolidation in Korea presents a wide-ranging and balanced account of the political, economic, and cultural factors shaping Korean democracy and of the institutional reforms that are needed to deepen and consolidate this crucial experiment with democracy in East Asia.

This timely collection brings together many well-known scholars to systematically explore China's current government and assess that transition toward democracy. The contributors seek to bridge the gap between normative theories of democracy and empirical studies of China's political development by providing a comprehensive overview of China's domestic history, economy, and public political ideologies.

The first product of the Carnegie Moscow Center's research on the 1999 Duma elections. It includes an analysis of the political situation and allignment of electoral forces on the eve of the elections, descriptions of the campaigns and policy platforms of the main electoral associations and blocs, and analysis of the electorate's fluctuating political preferences. Separate chapters are devoted to the electoral campaigns in the following regions: Saint Petersburg, Altai and Stavropol Krais, and the Samara and Tverskoi regions.

Expanded scientific activity is thought to benefit national economic development through improved labor force capacities adn the creation of new knolwedge and technology. However, scientific research activity expands as a global process and reflects the penetration of societies by a general rationalistic world culture. The authors point out that scientific expansion and the accompanying cultural penetration legitimate a board progressive agenda of social amelioration (e.g., by identifying environmental and health problems, and social welfare and human rights issues) that can result in regulation and direct constrainsts on productive economic activity in teh short term. Thus, science can be seen as encouraging a trade-off between short-term economic growth and boarder (and longer-term) social development. The effects of dimensions of scientific infrastrucutre on national economic growth are examined over the 1970-1990 period. Cross-national analyses show that the size of a nation's scientific labor force and training system has a positive effect on economic development, supporting conventional theories. However, indicators of national involvement in scientific research activity show negative effects on economic growth. Corollary analyses show that this negative effect is partially explained by the expansion of scientific activity into more socially relevant domains (e.g., medicine, environmental sciences, etc.) thus supporting the main arguments.

The progress of democracy in the world over the last quarter-century has been nothing less than remarkable. . . . But if the reach of democracy is greater than ever, it is also thinner and more vulnerable.

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The war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which began in August 1998, is unprecedented-at times involving armies from eight African states. Soldiers from Chad are fighting alongside regiments from Namibia, Angola, and Zimbabwe in defense of President Laurent Kabila. And on offense, the two main rebel groups, the Congolese Assembly for Democracy (which is known by the acronym RCD) and the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), are backed by troops from Uganda and Rwanda. As Susan E. Rice, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, warned the House International Relations Committee in September 1998, "The fighting threatens regional stability, hampers economic progress, endangers the lives of millions of people, perpetuates human rights abuses, and impedes the democratic transformation of Africa's third-largest country." This war, Rice said, is potentially "among the most dangerous conflicts on the globe."

Yet, the war in Congo goes on almost unnoticed outside of Africa. While African heads of state spent much of the last year shuttling across the continent, wrestling with the crisis and searching for a peaceful solution, Congo has been largely missing from the agendas of the Western powers and multilateral organizations. Only in January, when the U.S. representative to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke, taking advantage of his tenure as Security Council president to draw attention to Africa, did the war enter Western consciousness.

The conflict in the DRC is the first interstate war in sub-Saharan Africa since Uganda invaded Tanzania in 1978, and only the third since 1960. Although Africa is seen as a hotbed of violence and warfare, most conflicts have been intrastate in nature. Norms of sovereignty reinforced by clauses in the charter of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the constitutions of the various subregional organizations have effectively prevented cross-border conflict from the time of independence until now. The Ugandan and Rwandan-led invasion of Congo, as well as the presence there of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) intervention force, therefore represents a watershed in the recent history of African conflict. It appears that the forces preventing cross-border conflict since 1960 have become seriously weakened.

What are the implications of the rise of interstate war in Africa for peace and security on the continent? Why have Western powers been so reluctant to take an active role in resolving Africa's first "world war"? And what impact will the changing nature of warfare in Africa have on U.S. policy and the role of the United Nations there?

Pakistan's descent into authoritarian rule starkly depicts the "triple crisis of governance" that threatens many third-wave democracies. If these problems of governance are not addressed, a new "reverse wave" of democratization could be imminent.

Russian democracy and American national security are intimately intertwined. This link is not new, but it is not well understood. When the cold war ended and Soviet communism disappeared, American national security was enhanced. If dictatorship returns to Russia, the United States and its allies will once again be threatened. Containment would likely be adopted as the guiding principle of American foreign policy. The United States could find itself in an arms race with Russia. We argue here that the connection of Russian politics and U.S. security needs to be clearer in the minds of U.S. decision makers. Failure to recognize and respond to this link will have consequences for U.S. security interests.