ABSTRACT
Twenty-five years after the commencement of the third wave of democracy, how best to characterise the democratic position in Africa, Asia and Latin America? The short answer is: it is highly variable, with major differences between individual countries. While the numbers of democratically-elected governments in these regions increased greatly over the last two decades, significant numbers of nondemocratic regimes-personalist dictatorships, single-party and communist states, and military regimes-remained. While forms of authoritarian rule differed from regime to regime, what they had in common was a denial of political rights and civil liberties to the citizens: human rights were often ignored, woman’s demands belittled, environmental safeguards-if they existed-bypassed, and ethnic and religious minorities denied freedom of expression.
