Democratic transitions : trends, patterns, challenges

Abstract

We live in a time of infinite possibility where change and transition have become the norm for the vast majority of the world’s population. In the past five decades, we have witnessed profound change; the ending of the pernicious Apartheid state in South Africa; the collapse of hard line communism and its associated repression(s); the emergence of widespread support for the women’s movement worldwide and for the rights of women; a massive upsurge in basic literacy, health and nutrition and a revolution in information and communications. Today, the proportion of people unable to realise their basic physical needs is smaller than at any previous time in history and our capacity to meet such needs has never been greater. Yet, we also live in a time where inequality is greater than ever before; where the percentage of people with exponentially more than they need (or could ever productively use) is also greater; where much of science and progress is harnessed for the benefit and control of a small minority and where, despite the explosion of information and communication, our ‘understanding of the world and our place in it’ remains deficient. It seems that ‘the more we come together, the more we grow apart’. On the one hand, recent history has highlighted the actual scale and depth of increased democratic transition worldwide while also illustrating its profound limitations and elitism.