Over the next few decades East Asia is likely to be the most critical arena in the global struggle for democracy. A region of remarkable diversity that has achieved unparalleled economic growth, East Asia is viewed as a model by many developing countries in other parts of the world. Though some of its most successful countries are democratic, East Asia is also home to nondemocratic regimes that can claim enviable records of both political stability and economic growth. Some of these regimes have helped to launch a global debate about whether "Asian values" conducive to growth and stability may be incompatible with Western-style liberal democracy.

This volume of essays by leading North American and Asian scholars provides a comprehensive look at key themes relating to democracy in East Asia today. The contributors explore the "Asian values" debate, East Asia's democratic experience, the effort to consolidate East Asia's new democracies, and prospects for democratic transitions among the region's remaining authoritarian regimes.

Contributors: Frederick Z. Brown, Chai-Anan Samudavanija, Joseph Chan, Yun-han Chu, Gerald L. Curtis, Wm. Theodore de Bary, Larry Diamond, Francis Fukuyama, Makoto Iokibe, Bilahari Kausikan, Byung-Kook Kim, R. William Liddle, Gordon P. Means, Margaret Ng, Tatsumi Okabe, Parichart Chotiya, Minxin Pei, Marc F. Plattner, Robert Scalapino.

In December 1993, for the first time since the formation of Russia's anti-communist movement in the late 1980s, advocates of radical economic and political reform -- represented in this election by the electoral bloc Russia's Choice -- were rejected by Russia voters. The results shocked Russia's radical reformers. Although public opinion polls suggested that Russia's Choice might capture as high as 40 percent of the popular vote, this proreform and pro-Yeltsin electoral bloc won only 15.5 percent, well behind the 23 percent garnered by Vladimir Zhirinovskii's Liberal Democratic Party of Russia ( LDPR) and not much higher than the 12 percent won by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF). This dismal showing was especially surprising considering that President Boris Yeltsin--the leader and symbol of Russia's radical reform movement--had just won majority approval ratings for both his performance as president and his economic reform plan in a nationwide referendum held in April 1993, just eight months before the December parliamentary elections.

"For the first time in several years, politicians across the spectrum-liberals, communists, and nationalists alike-have begun to speak about the specter of Russian fascism should the current economic and political crises continue. Others, including even President Yeltsin, have warned of coup plots aimed at toppling Russia's fragile democracy. What went wrong, so quickly?"

Russia appears to have made tremendous progress in becoming a democracy in recent years. In December 1995, Russian citizens voted in parliamentary elections. In two rounds of voting in June and July in 1996, they then elected a president, the first time ever that Russian voters directly selected their head of state. Despite calls for delay and postponement, these two elections were held on time and under law - law drafted and approved through a democratic procedure by elected officials. Large majorities participated in both of these elections: 65% of all eligible voters in 1995, and nearly 70% in both rounds of the presidential vote. While electoral violations tainted both elections, especially the presidential vote, all participants - winners and losers - accepted the election results. After Boris Yeltsin's inauguration, the Communist-dominated parliament approved his candidate for prime minister - Viktor Chernomyrdin - by an overwhelming majority. This too was a first, as Russia's elected parliament had never approved the executive's choice for prime minister under the procedures outlined in a popularly-ratified constitution. Finally, from the fall of 1996 to the spring of 1998, over sixty gubernatorial elections were held throughout Russia. Although there was evidence that results were falsified in some races, the vast majority were recognized as free and fair by all major participants.

The next time Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin meet at a U.S.-Russian summit,

three kinds of issues will dominate their agenda's arms control, regional conflicts,

and human rights. In fact, these three issues may dominate the agenda of

future U.S.-Russian summits for a long time. Regarding arms control, the Russian

ratification of START II stands as one of the major stumbling points in U.S.-

Russia relations. The two presidents probably will not meet again until this agreement

has been ratified by the Russian parliament. Regarding regional conflicts,

the American and Russian governments have radically divergent positions concerning

trade with Iran. For several years, the United States has objected to the

Russian-assisted construction of nuclear reactors in Iran, yet the Russian Ministry

of Atomic Energy continues with the project. Regarding human rights,

American officials have quite rightly expressed their outrage concerning the passage

of a new draconian law on religion that restricts the freedom of worship of

most "nontraditional" Russian faiths. In reaction to this law, the U.S. Senate has

threatened to end all aid to Russia.

Throughout the history of the modern world, domestic regime change- be it democratization, autocratization, decolonization, decommunization, federal dissolution, coups, or revolutions- has often triggered international conflict and war. When a regime changes, decaying institutions from the ancien regime compete with new rules of the game to shape political competition in ambiguous ways. This uncertain text provides opportunities for political actors, both old and new, to pursue new strategies for achieving their objectives, including belligerent policies against both domestic and international foes. In desperation, losers from regime change may resort to violence to maintain their former privileges. Such internal conflicts become international wars when these interest groups who benefited from the old order call upon their allies to intervene on their behalf or strike out against their enemies as means to shore up their domestic legitimacy. In the name of democracy, independence, the revolution, or the nation, the beneficiaries of regime change also can resort to violence against both domestic and international opponents to secure their new gains.

The Paradox of Plenty explains why, in the midst of two massive oil booms in the 1970s, oil-exporting governments as different as Venezuela, Iran, Nigeria, Algeria, and Indonesia chose common development paths and suffered similarly disappointing outcomes. Meticulously documented and theoretically innovative, this book illuminates the manifold factors--economic, political, and social--that determine the nature of the oil state, from the coherence of public bureaucracies, to the degree of centralization, to patterns of policy-making.

Karl contends that oil countries, while seemingly disparate, are characterized by similar social classes and patterns of collective action. In these countries, dependence on petroleum leads to disproportionate fiscal reliance on petrodollars and public spending, at the expense of statecraft. Oil booms, which create the illusion of prosperity and development, actually destabilize regimes by reinforcing oil-based interests and further weakening state capacity.

Karl's incisive investigation unites structural and choice-based approaches by illuminating how decisions of policymakers are embedded in institutions interacting with domestic and international markets. This approach--which Karl dubs "structured contingency"--uses a state's leading sector as the starting point for identifying a range of decision-making choices, and ends by examining the dynamics of the state itself.

Although Africa has been one of the least democratic regions of the world, it has been experiencing widespread pressures for democratic change since 1990. Although pressure-from both domestic civil societies and international donors-has failed to bring about a transition to democracy in most cases, it has succeeded in many. Today, about a third of all African countries are at least electoral democracies, and virtually all regimes in sub-Saharan Africa have at least legalized opposition parties. Conventional political science theories view Africa's democratic prospects as grim because of its extreme poverty and deep ethnic divisions. This essay takes a more hopeful and "developmental" view. It argues that democratic change can occur in Africa and must if it is to develop economically. But this will inevitably involve a long-term process of political and social change and, in particular, institution building. African countries need new, more appropriate, and more effective institutions to control corruption, provide a market-oriented enabling environment for economic growth, and generate incentives for political parties to craft broad multiethnic appeals and constituencies. If institutions of governance, electoral politics, and civil society can be strengthened and innovatively designed, there is hope for democracy in Africa. But this will also require heavy international conditionality and pressure for more responsible policies and more effective institutions, as well as greater international support for those African regimes that appear serious about democracy and good governance. African societies are ready for a new democratic beginning, but they require the right institutional frameworks at home and vigorous engagement of the international community if deeply entrenched patterns of statism, corruption, repression, ethnic exclusion, and violence are to be overcome.

The global trend that Samuel P. Huntington has dubbed the "third wave" of democratization has seen more than 60 countries experience democratic transitions since 1974. While these countries have succeeded in bringing down authoritarian regimes and replacing them with freely elected governments, few of them can as yet be considered stable democracies. Most remain engaged in the struggle to consolidate their new and fragile democratic institutions.

Consolidating the Third Wave Democracies provides an in-depth analysis of the challenges that they face. In addition to the complete hardcover edition, Consolidating the Third Wave Democracies is available in two paperback volumes, each introduced by the editors and organized for convenient course use. The first paperback volume, Themes and Perspectives, addresses issues of institutional design, civil-military relations, civil society, and economic development. It brings together some of the world's foremost scholars of democratization, including Robert A. Dahl, Samuel P. Huntington, Juan J. Linz, Guillermo O'Donnell, Adam Przeworski, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Alfred Stepan.

The second paperback volume, Regional Challenges, focuses on developments in Southern Europe, Latin America, Russia, and East Asia, particularly Taiwan and China. It contains essays by leading regional experts, including Yun-han Chu, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, Thomas B. Gold, Michael McFaul, Andrew J. Nathan, and Hung-mao Tien.

At first glance, the process of democratic transition and consolidation in Russia - and the postcommunist world in general - seems similar to that in other countries that are part of the "third wave" of democratization. The descriptive discourse of "transitology" efficiently identifies the actors, actions, and accidents of postcommunist regime transformations. Scholars already have successfully used concepts from Latin America and Southern Europe such as liberalization, "hard-liners vs. soft-liners," "reforma vs. ruptura," pacts, and founding elections to describe communist regime change. These developments have brought the study of the former communist world into the mainstream, if not the cutting edge, of comparative politics.