Introduction

Abstract

The 1980s registered a widespread expansion of electoral democracy around the world. Mainstream social sciences referred to this change as the “third wave of democratization” and they explained it through a theoretical approach that was called the “transition paradigm”. According to this paradigm, countries that were previously under authoritarian rule were viewed to be moving towards democracy. The shift towards a democratic regime was characterized by the development of free and competitive elections, and by the existence of basic political and civil rights. To a large extent, democracy was equated with elections. In this analytical framework, the key factor in bringing about this political change was the acceptance of electoral results by elites and power-holders with veto power. Some of these actors were democrats, while others accepted these rules on the grounds that democratic government was a lesser evil, preferable to the dictatorships that were in decline. The centrality of elite competition for the definition of democracy reveals the Schumpeterian thrust of the “transitionists’” conception of democracy.