ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces some fundamental sociological ideas that help in understanding democratic waves. Thomas Paine, served as an effective promoter of the American rebels through states, social movement challengers, and elite reformers his writing while attached to George Washington's army in 1776. The power of nonviolent disruption had been explored by an Indian lawyer working with Indian immigrant laborers in South Africa in early twentieth century. The European colonial powers and their fortune-seeking settlers had come to depend on slaves from Africa to provide the labor for the profitable economic enterprises established in the New World. Social movements of many different types have proved extremely mobile, often crossing national frontiers with ease. Both social movements and reforming elites have played significant roles in the history of democratization. Most of the world's states now have written constitutions, and a written constitution is very close to being an implicit claim that human beings have set the rules under which authority is exercised.
