ABSTRACT
The long-term perspective on democratic stability - democratic longevity gives a probability assessment of the macro factors that impact on whether a country has a democratic regime which implements civil and political rights. The findings show that both exogenous factors, or big social forces, and endogenous factors, institutions, condition this probability. Thus, it is also the case that individual countries have ample space to manoeuvre in relation to these macro forces by choosing the correct institutions. What happens in a country in the short-term matters too. Let us analyse the short-term influences on democracy by means of an enquiry into some of the countries that began a system transition in 1989/90 - this has been the theme of democratic consolidation in Eastern Europe (Crawford and Lijphart, 1995; McFaul, 2002). Later in this chapter we will also deal with the question of which factors have impacted on economic growth in these countries during the same period of time - the period of system transition taking place in the last decade of the twentieth century.
