Democratic Transitions

Sergio Bitar, president of Chile's Foundation for Democracy, is a political leader and public intellectual. Abraham F. Lowenthal, professor emeritus of the University of Southern California, was the founding director of the Inter-American Dialogue and the Wilson Center's Latin American Program.

• ForewordPrefaceIntroductionChapter 1.BrazilChapter 2. ChileChapter 3. GhanaChapter 4. IndonesiaChapter 5. Mexico Chapter 6. The PhilippinesChapter 7. Poland Chapter 8. South AfricaChapter 9. SpainChapter 10. Women Activists in Democratic TransitionsChapter 11. From Authoritarian Rule toward Democratic GovernanceAcknowledgmentsAbout the Editors and ContributorsSelected BibliographyIndex

Democratic Transitions is a balanced, thoughtful, empirically-based volume that adds an important dimension to our understanding of both the theoretical and the policy issues surrounding the spread of democracy abroad. It is a major addition to the literature on post-authoritarian transitions and on the "how-to" of consolidating democracy after dictatorship. In an era of undue pessimism about the fate of democracy worldwide, it is a timely reminder of how democratic transitions can be made to work. Orbis: A Journal of World Affairs ... In evoking all of these collective distilled experiences from some of the world most successful politicians from recent decades, Bitar and Lowenthal also convey their passion for democracy forcefully, and they enable the college freshman and the scholar to understand better the events and processes that have shaped the world for the better in which we live. ReVista