Inexorable Force of Dying Wave? Long term trends of democratization and the third wave of autocratization 

Abstract:

After several decades of increased democratic governance in the world during the third wave of democratization, democratic rule is now in decline. However, does this decline in democratic rule mean that the underlying process which governs democratization and autocratization has changed? Or, are these ’waves’ consistent with a stable, but highly variable, process which trends inexorably towards greater democracy? This paper conceptualizes waves as self-reinforcing periods of democratization or autocratization which occur as the consequence of contagious regime change on the individual country-level, and evaluates whether the process which governs the development of democracy and autocracy on the global level is consistent with a stable process. The paper investigates this by simulating trajectories of governance in all countries from 1789 to 2020 in order to assess the likelihood of observing democratic and autocratic waves in general, and the third wave of autocratiaztion in particular. The results show that the historical record indeed is consistent with a stable process, and that under such a process the current wave of autocratization is not unlikely.

Authors:

David Randahl