Waves of democracy (word count: 3000)

By Dr. Miguel A. Buitrago

Introduction
Is democratization an irreversible, long-term, global trend? Is democracy a form of government
that, under certain conditions and contexts, alternates with various forms of authoritarian rule
over a long-term? These are the most meaningful questions the notion of waves of democracy
addresses at its most fundamental level. Embedded within the democratization field of studies,
the concept of waves of democracy (also referred to as waves of democratization or even as
democratization waves) refers to the increasing propensity of non-democratic governments to
transition towards democratic systems of governments over, more or less, distinctive periods of
time. This observation was made by political scientist Samuel Huntington who coined and
developed the concept. He first wrote about waves of democracy in a 1991 article published in
the Journal of Democracy. He later expanded the concept in a seminal book entitled The Third
Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century, published the same year.
Remarkably distinctive, the concept of democratic waves has been very useful to better
understand regime transitions and, in a more indirect manner, the dynamics of larger issues such
democratization processes, and ultimately, the application, endurance and stability of democracy
as a regime system. In order the conceptually frame his analysis, Samuel Huntington took a
chronological approach to the analysis of regime changes over a long period of time. This
approach made it possible to shed light on the pattern of development, i.e. waves, through which
this process could be better understood. In addition, it must be highlighted that the main focus of
analysis were the so called third wave democratization processes. Samuel Huntingtons main
conclusion drawn from his analysis has been to recognize that most probably, not one, not two,
but many factors contribute to the democratization of countries; more likely, in a simultaneously
and/or often contradictory manner. That is, for example, transition explanations for the first two
waves covering from the early 1800s to the post-WWII period tended to concentrate on the role
of factors such as economic development, cultural traits, decolonization and prior experience
with such a government. Alternatively, the explaining factors concerning the transitions during
the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, tended to concentrate on the role of legitimacy problems of
authoritarian systems, unprecedented global economic growth, changes in the Catholic Churchs
doctrine against authoritarianism, changes in the foreign policies of international actors, and the
enhancing of international communication which contributed to the snowballing effect.
This entry aims at explaining the nature and meaning of the concept of waves of democracy by,
first and foremost, addressing the question: what is it meant by democracy? In second place, the
entry presents the development of the term, to thirdly, present the more contemporary debate.
What is it meant by Democracy?
In order to delve into the waves of democracy subject it is necessary to understand first what type
of democracy we are dealing with when we speak of democracy in this context. To be able to
follow the development of the democratic waves over time, Samuel Huntington used a
contextualized definition of democracy. In that manner, in order to categorize democracies during
the first wave, for example, the definition of democracy focused on two rather constraining
requirements from today's point of view but adequate at the time. In the context of the nineteenth

and early twentieth centuries, a country that implemented male universal vote and chose its heads
of states in a more or less competitive elections, was considered democratic. In a more modern
context, this type of democracy can be understood as electoral democracy. However, the
conception of democracy has evolved as has the practice of democracy. For that reason, in more
recent times, both, academics as well as practitioners, starting with Samuel Huntington, have had
liberal democracy in mind when speaking about the democratization of a country. There may well
be many reasons for that, among them that the debate has been dominated by English speaking
scholars who live in the United States of America or the fact that for many who dedicate their
work to measuring the degree of democracy in a country have tended to have liberal democracy
as a model of an ideal system of government or, not least, the fact that the American liberal
democracy has become a model due to its resilience and stability since its inception.
As Samuel Huntington analyzed democratization processes in the twentieth century, he had
liberal democracy in his mind when he thought of democratization. Liberal democracy has been
defined as a type of democracy where democratic as well as liberal values come together. It
includes the idea of free, fair, competitive and frequent elections; that political representatives get
elected through an electoral process; that those results are respected by everyone with the full
knowledge they are not permanent; the existence of political and civic pluralism; that people can
express and associate themselves freely; that the rule of law guarantees equality and fairness; that
people have free access to alternative forms of information; and that people can take part freely in
the political process.
However, some authors criticize this assumption. For some scholars Samuel Huntingtons
definition to democracy is not explicit enough, giving way to classify some countries as
democracy which otherwise defined would not be considered as such. For other critics the
definition is too narrow. They argue that it should be more inclusive of democratic as well as
semi-democratic patterns. On the contrary, this last criticism often opens indeed the way for some
countries with semi-democratic systems or even with apparent democratic systems to be defined
as democracies.
Waves of democracy
The concept of waves of democracy is understood as the process through which groups of
transitions from authoritarian to democratic regimes take place within a specified period of time.
Within each wave, there is an initial period where an increasing number of transitions towards
democratic systems of government take place reaching a maximum after some time. Once that
peak is reached, the direction of transition reverses and a smaller number of those transitions
revert towards authoritarian or non-democratic regimes. Samuel Huntington observed three
waves of democracy in world history. The first wave took place between the American and
French revolutions in the last quarter of the XIX century and the first decades of the XX century.
The second wave took place in the post WWII period and the third wave of democratization
began in 1974 with the Portuguese return to democracy, with no end in sight.
The first wave of democratization
The first wave of democratization took place between the years 1828 and 1926. Rooted in the
American and French revolutions, the first wave took roughly one hundred years. The most active
time was however the time after the collapse of the Habsburg, Hohenzollern and the Romanov

empires. During this time somewhere in the order of thirty countries established some type of
democratic institutions in their systems. Subsequently, the first reverse wave took place from
1922 to 1942. Notable was, the reversal occurring in the nations which had less experience with
democracy and those new nations which emerged after World War II. Notable was also that
almost none of the nations with long-term democratic experience had experienced reversal. The
reasons for the reversals have been traced to the great depression, the inexperience with
democracy of newly created nations, and the emergence of communist, fascist and military
nationalist ideologies.
Second wave of democratization
The second waves of democratization, and the shortest of them all, took place from 1943 to 1962.
This wave began in the aftermath of World War II and was, to some extent, reinforced by the
beginning of the decolonization process. A counter balancing force, however, was the expansion
of communism in the context of the Cold War. All in all, around forty countries became
democracies in this period. The second reverse wave happened between 1958 and 1975. By all
accounts, this reversal period was the most significant. Not only because from thirty democracies
twenty two had reversed to some type of authoritarian regime, but also because the
decolonization process gave way to many new independent nations which turned authoritarian
right away and also because this reversal had included some nations which had had experience
with democracy for the best part of a quarter of a century.
Third wave of democratization
The third wave of democratization began in 1974 in Portugal. In contrast to the previous reversal,
this rise in the number of democracies by a number of thirty five countries was impressive. Not
only did this wave reach parts of Southern Europe, Latin America and Asia during the 1970s,
where there had been prior experience with it, but endured throughout the 1980s and some part of
the 1990s reaching Eastern Europe and some parts of Africa and the Middle East where
democracy for the most part was a relatively new experience. The third wave is seen as a truly
global event.
Debating about the waves
The overarching conceptual category framing the debate about democratic waves is regime
change. Within this debate, regime change or transition may refer to a change from authoritarian
to a democratic regime, from a democratic to an authoritarian regime or even to a change from an
authoritarian to another authoritarian regime. The focus here is on the transition of the particular
regime, without any specific direction. However, the debate over waves of democracy has a
distinct direction which denotes a transition from a non-democratic towards a democratic regime.
In this debate, which has generated a vast amount of literature, the questions have concentrated
on the existence of waves and reverse waves, wave patterns, on whether these waves have
happened in distinguishable periods, on whether there were only three distinct waves, and on
whether the third wave is still happening or is it over or the waves in general are over.
The existence of waves

This part of the debate focuses on whether the waves of democracy were indeed waves. While the
original argument makes use of the concept of waves to characterize the increase in regime
transformations from non-democratic to democratic systems and the subsequent reversal of these
transformations in a given time, Samuel Huntington warned that history was messy and not
unidirectional and therefore it could not be expected that these historical events would fit a neat
pattern as the one the idea of waves portraits. Nevertheless, he argued further, the
conceptualization of waves of democracy was useful to understand the phenomenon.
In contrast, for many critics, the idea of wave patterns was difficult to argue, if not impossible. A
group of scholars argued the different regime transformation patterns in question did not reflect
waves precisely because these events did not fit neatly into the pattern of a wave. Instead, these
processes could be better understood by looking for regional patterns, e.g. Western Europe, Latin
America, Eastern Europe and the Maghreb. This approach takes into account the structural, socioeconomic, cultural and contextual differences in each region. Moreover, for a number of scholars
the manner in which Samuel Huntington defined waves using the percentage of democracies in
the world at some point in time was problematic. Had he instead focused on regime transitions
rather than the number of democracies he would have found no evidence for waves. Similarly,
other critics find no evidence for reverse waves, which supports the contention of no waves.
Other critics, while accepting the idea of waves, criticized the manner in which waves themselves
were placed in time and the number of waves that took place. Contrasting to what Samuel
Huntington proposed, scholars have pointed out that the first wave was really two distinct ones.
One involved the European-settled countries which had already managed to establish certain
freedoms and rule of law and that over this period moved towards an expanded understanding of
democracy by extending voting rights. The second cluster was made up of countries which in the
aftermath of WWI became democratic because they lost the war. Additionally, the second
Huntington wave could be divided into three waves. One made up of countries defeated in WWII,
a second wave made up with countries born out of decolonization, and a third cluster included
coincidences, mainly in Latin America. Lastly, during the so called third wave, two clusters could
be distinguished. One was the wave of democratization that swept Southern Europe and Latin
America in the 1970s and 1980s. The second cluster had to do with the disintegration of the
USSR.
Furthermore, other scholars argue a fourth wave is under way. With this scholars refer to the
events beginning in 2011 known as the Arab Spring, albeit this wave having not produced as
many stable democracies as one might expect in a wave. The argument highlights the differences
in types of regimes and the time in which these events took place. In addition, other arguments
have been proposed following this logic which introduces further waves at distinct points in time.
This debate, to this day, has not been resolved, and it will continue until a clear pattern of
reversals can be observed which would signal the clear end of the third wave of democratization.
Why do waves happen? External and internal factors
Another part of the debate concentrates on the factors that trigger waves. Based on Samuel
Huntingtons argument, scholars have been able to identify internal and external factors playing a
role in the transition process for an authoritarian regime to turn democratic. By the same token,
scholars, by observing the transitions from democratic regimes towards authoritarianism or other
non-democratic systems have also been able to discern relevant factors. The relevance of such

factors and their contribution towards the establishment or reversal of democracy is what largely
makes up the content of the current debate in this field.
Samuel Huntington proposed four ways in which waves happened. He first pointed to factors that
could evolve parallel to each other, such as socio-economic developments. Second, he argued that
many times there is an agreement among political actors across societies that institutional reforms
are needed as solution to a particular situation. Third, he argued there were spill-over effects of
democratization from one country to another. These could be elite-led or opposition-led. Finally,
he argued that there could be one significant factor happening, mainly external - changing
attitude of a great power or wars, etc.
Arguments highlighting internal factors tend to explain the first and third waves in the following
manner. The first wave transitions before WWI signified a change to democracy from oligarchies
by the extension of political rights such as universal vote and were primarily affected by internal
factors. The third wave transitions were relatively quick and affected largely by internal factors
and they were from an authoritarian to a democratic regime pushed by popular demand. Those
scholars who tend to emphasize external factors explain the second wave thus. The transitions
after WWI and the ones after WWII were affected mostly by external factors such as the
aftermath of the two wars, the end of the major empires and the efforts to decolonize.
More often than none, however, there are explanations that combine both external and internal
factors contributing to a democratization wave. Most of those arguments support Samuel
Huntingtons proposition that regime changes do occur in waves, in particular regions and in
particular times. For example, external factors simultaneously impact the systems of multiple
countries, whereby the system in each particular country finds itself in an unstable period being
affected by particular internal factors. Particularly susceptible are the countries where the
institutional arrangements are not solid and the influences of neighboring countries are significant
as are any external shocks to the interstate system. These, combined with the slow but certain
impact of economic development, are the causes for waves.
Is the Third Wave Over?
Indeed, it is precisely the definition of this wave that triggered the most significant and enduring
debate. The wave had been defined as beginning in 1974 and was literally left with no
recognizable end. However, in most recent times, many scholars have argued the third wave did
come to an end, while others argue it continues but in a different quality. Marc Plattner has
suggested the waves are over. Primarily because within the pool of countries, the ones more apt
for democracy have already transitioned while those remaining are less prone to democracy. Also,
the attractiveness of the world's leading democracies has been declining and their institutions
have been functioning poorly, therefore the attractiveness of democracy has diminished. In
addition, foreign policies and supporting actions for democracy have been discredited. Finally,
the influence and assertiveness of authoritarian regimes has been increasing. Moreover, many
scholars have even go as far as recognizing a reverse wave, especially in the Latin American
region, which would definitely bring the third wave to an end.
Other scholars argue the third wave has not come to an end but it is stagnating. They point out at
the vast literature showing empirical evidence that very few democratization processes are being
started. Finally, other scholars characterize the third wave as continuing to progress but in a

different quality. With that is meant the various deepening or consolidation processes having been
started around the world.
Dr. Miguel A. Buitrago
USAC Program, Leuphana University Lueneburg
See also: Democratic Process; Stages of Democratization; Liberal Democracy; Regime Type;
South American Transitions to Democracy; South Asian Transitions to Democracy
Further readings
Huntington, Samuel P. The Third Wave: democratization in the late twentieth century. Norman,
London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991.
Huntington, Samuel P. Democracys Third Wave. Journal of Democracy, 2, 2, pgs. 12 24,
1991.
Plattner, Marc. The end of the transition era?. Journal of Democracy, 25, 3, pgs. 5 16, 2014.
Moeller, Jurgen and Sven-Erik Skanning. The Third Wave: Inside the Numbers. Journal of
Democracy, 24, 4, 2013.
Moeller, Jurgen and Sven-Erik Skanning. Democracy and Democratization in Comparative
Perspective: Conceptions, Conjunctures, Causes and Consequences. London: Routledge, 2013.
Perez-Lian, Anibal and Scott Mainwaring. Hegemony or Contagion? International Factors and
Democratization in Latin America, 1945 2005. Paper prepared for the FLACSO-ISA Joint
International Conference in Buenos Aires, July 23 25, 2014.
Doorenspleet, Renske. Reassessing the three Waves of Democratization. World Politics, 52, 3,
2000.
Dahl, Marianne, Scott Gates, Havard Hegre, and Havard Strand. Why Waves? Global Patterns
of Democratization, 1820 2008. folk.uio.no/hahegre/Papers/WhyWaves_2012.pdf. Accessed
on December 24, 2014.