ABSTRACT
In 1950, the world was almost equally divided among autocracies, anocracies (or hybrid regimes), and democracies. In the following two decades, the departure of colonial powers from Africa and Asia resulted in an explosion in the number of independent countries. Democracy is clearly the norm in the twenty-first century. However, the majority of democracies today are relatively young, having had democratic institutions for less than a generation. The Polity Project scores all independent countries of the world with a population of at least 500,000 on autocratic and democratic features, resulting in a 21-point scale from -10 to 10 to measure regime type. The larger proportion of young regimes in the democratic category does not seem to have increased their relative risk of falling into serious state instability.
