This book outlines a new strategy that applies the organizing principles of progressive internationalism--national strength, free enterprise, liberal democracy, U.S. leadership for collective security--to the new challenge of defeating Islamist extremism. Published in cooperation with the Progressive Policy Institute.

The transitions to democracy in the postcommunist region over the past decade and one-half share a common dynamic, featuring the interaction between two sets of factors. The first is the long-term development of both civil society and a liberal opposition. The second is more short-term: an expansion of international support for regime change, clear demonstration by mass publics that they reject incumbent illiberal regimes (through protests and voting), and the victory of the liberal opposition in competitive elections. Successful democratization in the postcommunist world, therefore, seems to rest upon mass mobilization, a supportive international environment, and a sharp break with the authoritarian past, rather than the model that emerged in Spain and parts of Latin America; that is, a largely domestic dynamic combining bargaining between incumbent and opposition elites and elections and policies in the early stages of transition that bridged the old and the new order.

This paper primarily deals with later postcommunist transitions to democracy. In particular, we compare the decisive turn to democratic politics in Slovakia in 1998 with a similar dramatic political turn in Serbia in 2000. Such a comparison is instructive because of the importance of the model of democratization that was developed and applied in these cases, and because of the insights these two countries offer as a consequence of variations in both political-economic context and the nature of their electoral revolutions.

When Vladimir Putin was elected President of Russia in March 2000, the country bequeathed to him by his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, was an unconsolidated, often disorderly and raucous electoral democracy. Gradually though, the Russian political system under Putin came to be described as first "managed democracy" then "illiberal democracy" or "delegated democracy" and finally, by 2005, a non-democracy.

What happened? Why did the fourth wave crash on Russia's shores, and what prospects are there for external factors to play a role in bringing about a rejuvenation of democracy in Russia in the next decade? Is Russia immune to the diffusion effect of democratization that purportedly swept the East in the late 1980's and that is again moving eastward in the last 4 years? What are the implications for this apparent resistance to the fourth wave for Russia's fragile newly democratic neighbors in Ukraine, Georgia and Serbia? In this essay, I will explore these and other questions as I try to assess the internal and external factors that might help us to understand why Russia has undergone a "reverse wave" in democratization even as its smaller neighbors have apparently resisted the authoritarian tide that struck parts of the post-communist world in the late 1990s.

What role did external actors and the United States in particular, play in fostering the factors that led to the Orange Revolution? An answer to this question is not only important as a factual response to the critics of the Orange Revolution. The case is also an important one to be studied by those interested in understanding how external actors can influence democratization. Tracing the causal impact of democracy assistance programs on the consolidation of liberal democracy is very difficult, since the process of liberal democratic consolidation is incremental, complex, and long-term. The Orange Revolution, however, is a defined, concrete outcome, which therefore can be more easily explained. This essay attempts to offer such an explanation, with special attention devoted to isolating the distinctive contributions to the Orange Revolution of programs funded by the U.S. Agency of International Development.

The "first" transitions from communist rule in Europe and Eurasia at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s did not resemble many of the transitions from authoritarian rule in the previous two decades. Why? Some have suggested that countries in the communist world shared distinguishing historical legacies or particular institutional configurations that made them different from the countries in Latin American and Southern Europe, which in turn had path-dependent consequences for the kind of transition they experienced. These differences are most certainly a major part of the explanation.

In addition, however, this paper argues that the configuration of the international system also played a causal role. The bipolar system of the Cold War constrained the kinds of transitions possible, both in the "East" and in the "West." By 1989, this international system no longer existed, but instead was in transition to a new global order anchored by one hegemon, the United States. This new system allowed for a wider range of transitions than the previous era. The "international system" is the missing independent variable that helps to unify theories about the "third wave" and the "fourth wave" and move us close towards a general theory of democratization.