ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on contemporary analyses in which tools of empirical analysis were utilized to provide answers to many of the long standing questions about the prerequisites for democratization. The existing literature on democratization is both comprehensive and detailed, and a discussion of the scope of work in this field is beyond the bounds of this analysis. Democracy should be recognized as only one specific form of political system, or regime type, important in the contemporary era. Autocracy in general, and totalitarianism in particular, are identified as polar opposites of democracy, but a number of variant forms fall in between. The use as a democracy indicator of the share of the vote cast for the largest political party has a clear rationale in principle: in a genuine democracy, there will be sufficient competition between political parties that none will ever reach a position of substantial dominance, let alone monopoly.
