POSC 017 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Arab Spring, Authoritarianism, Freedom House
11 Oct 2016
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Document Summary
Norm for most of human history (broker 2009) There weren"t many democratic governments until the end of the 19th century. Freedom house scores: 48 countries are not free and 58 countries are partly free (semi auth) 60% of the world"s population lives in non-democratic regimes. All these non-democratic regimes are located in the developing world. The collapse of authoritarian regimes does not always lead to democratic institutions. The collapse of the soviet union and continued authoritarianism in belarus: The current president (lukashenka) came to power in 1994. He built a strong autocratic and personalistic regime with support from russia. The political opposition is intimidated (many political prisoners) and the civil society is repressed. Democracy is a regime in which those who govern are selected through contested elections . A leader or a small group exercises power within formally ill-defined limits. Formal laws and constitutions are a poor guide. Very few political parties/ or only exist formally.
