political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

, the waves of democracy are major surges of

democracy Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose gov ...

that have occurred in history. Although the term appears at least as early as 1887, it was popularized by Samuel P. Huntington, a political scientist at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, in his article published in the ''

Journal of Democracy The ''Journal of Democracy'' is a quarterly academic journal established in 1990 and an official publication of the National Endowment for Democracy's International Forum for Democratic Studies. It covers the study of democracy, democratic regimes ...

'' and further expounded in his 1991 book, '' The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century''. Democratization waves have been linked to sudden shifts in the distribution of power among the great powers, which created openings and incentives to introduce sweeping domestic reforms. Scholars debate the precise number of democratic waves. Huntington describes three waves: the first "slow" wave of the 19th century, a second wave after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, and a third wave beginning in the mid-1970s in southern Europe, followed by Latin America and Asia. Though his book does not discuss the collapse of the Soviet bloc, a number of scholars have taken the "Third Wave" to include the democratic transitions of 1989–1991. Other scholars, such as

Seva Gunitsky Seva Gunitsky is an American political scientist. He is an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on the ways global forces and international politics affect democracy and domestic politics. He i ...

of the University of Toronto, have referred to thirteen waves from the 18th century to the

Arab Spring The Arab Spring ( ar, الربيع العربي) was a series of Nonviolent resistance, anti-government protests, Rebellion, uprisings and Insurgency, armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in T ...

(2011–2012).

Definition

In his 1991 book, '' The Third Wave'', Huntington defined a democratic wave as "a group of transitions from nondemocratic to democratic regimes that occur within a specified period of time and that significantly outnumber transitions in the opposite directions during that period of time." (Huntington 1991, 15) Mainwaring and Aníbal Pérez-Liñán (2014, 70) offer a similar definition: "any historical period during which there is a sustained and significant increase in the proportion of competitive regimes (democracies and semi-democracies)." Gunitsky (2018) defines a democratic wave as a clustering of attempted or successful democratic transitions, coupled with linkages among the transitions in that cluster.

Huntington's three waves

First wave

The first wave of democracy (1828–1926) began in the early 19th century when

suffrage Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in representative democracy, public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally i ...

was granted to the majority of white males in the United States ("

Jacksonian democracy Jacksonian democracy was a 19th-century political philosophy in the United States that expanded suffrage to most white men over the age of 21, and restructured a number of federal institutions. Originating with the seventh U.S. president, And ...

"). This was followed by France, Britain, Canada, Australia, Italy, and Argentina, and a few others, before 1900. At its peak, after the breakup of the Russian, German, Austrian, and Ottoman empires in 1918, the first wave saw 29 democracies in the world. Reversal began in 1922, when

Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 194 ...

rose to power in Italy. The collapse primarily hit newly formed democracies, which could not stand against the aggressive rise of expansionist communist, fascist, and militaristic authoritarian or totalitarian movements that systematically rejected democracy. The nadir of the first wave came in 1942, when the number of democracies in the world dropped to a mere twelve.

Second wave

The second wave began following the Allied victory in

, and crested nearly twenty years later, in 1962, with 36 recognised democracies in the world. The second wave ebbed as well at this point, and the total number dropped to thirty democracies between 1962 and the mid-1970s. But the "flat line" would not last for long, as the third wave was about to surge in a way no one had ever seen. Scholars have noted that the appearance of "waves" of democracy largely vanishes when women's suffrage is taken into account. Moreover, some countries change their positions quite dramatically:

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, which is typically included as part of the first wave, did not grant women the right to vote until 1971.

Third wave

The third wave began with the 1974

Carnation Revolution The Carnation Revolution ( pt, Revolução dos Cravos), also known as the 25 April ( pt, 25 de Abril, links=no), was a military coup by left-leaning military officers that overthrew the authoritarian Estado Novo regime on 25 April 1974 in Lisbo ...

in Portugal and the late-1970s

Spanish transition to democracy Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...

. This was followed by the historic democratic transitions in Latin America in the 1980s, Asia-Pacific countries (

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

, and

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

) from 1986 to 1988, Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and sub-Saharan Africa, beginning in 1989. The expansion of democracy in some regions was stunning. In Latin America, only Colombia, Costa Rica, and Venezuela were democratic by 1978, and only Cuba and Haiti remained authoritarian by 1995, when the wave had swept across twenty countries. Huntington points out that three-fourths of the new democracies were Roman Catholic; most Protestant countries already were democratic. He emphasizes the Vatican Council of 1962, which turned the Church from defenders of the old established order into an opponent of totalitarianism. Countries undergoing or having undergone a transition to democracy during a wave are sometimes subject to

democratic backsliding Democratic backsliding, also called autocratization, is the decline in the democratic characteristics of a political system, and is the opposite of democratization. Democracy is the most popular form of government, with more than half of the nat ...

. Political scientists and theorists believe that the third wave has crested and will soon begin to ebb, just as its predecessors did in the first and second waves. In the period immediately following the onset of the "war on terror" after the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States, some backsliding ensued. How significant or lasting that erosion is remains a subject of debate. Third-wave countries, including Portugal, Spain, South Korea, and Taiwan, have become fully consolidated democracies rather than backsliding. As of 2020, they even had stronger democracies than many counterparts with a much longer history as democratic countries.

Arab Spring

Experts have associated the collapse of several dictatorships in the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

and

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

, a phenomenon known as the

, with the events that followed the fall of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

in Eastern Europe. The similarity between the two phenomena inspired hope for a fourth wave of

democratization Democratization, or democratisation, is the transition to a more democratic political regime, including substantive political changes moving in a democratic direction. It may be a hybrid regime in transition from an authoritarian regime to a ful ...

. However, a few months after the apparent beginning of the transition, most of the Arab political openings closed, causing an inevitable pull-back. One of the most alarming cases was that of Egypt, where the government, controlled by the military, did not facilitate the democratic transition in any way. On the contrary, it strove to silence revolt by arresting peaceful protesters and by trying them in military tribunals. A concrete example is provided by the story of Maikel Nabil, an Egyptian blogger convicted and sentenced to three years in prison for "insulting the military establishment". The main causes of the regression and crisis in all the affected countries are attributed to corruption, unemployment, social injustice, and autocratic political systems. Despite the apparently unsolvable situation, the UN, under the administration of

Ban Ki-moon Ban Ki-moon (; ; born 13 June 1944) is a South Korean politician and diplomat who served as the eighth secretary-general of the United Nations between 2007 and 2016. Prior to his appointment as secretary-general, Ban was his country's Minister ...

, tried to work as a mediator between the governments and the protesters.

Larry Diamond Larry Jay Diamond (born October 2, 1951) is an American political sociologist and leading contemporary scholar in the field of democracy studies. Diamond is a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, which is Stanf ...

has claimed that the role of the United States in the democratic transition of the Arab world was fundamental.

Digital media Digital media is any communication media that operate in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital media can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, and preserved on a digital electronics device. ' ...

played a large role in creating favorable conditions for uprisings, helped to publicize key igniting events, and then facilitated those uprisings and their diffusion. But digital media did not do this alone or as suddenly as some observers have claimed. The story of the Arab Spring, according to Howard and Hussain, began over a decade ago as internet access and mobile phones began to diffuse rapidly through North Africa and the Middle East. The citizens that could afford internet access, the wealthy and powerful, mostly, played a huge role in the

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

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, and

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uprisings. Over time, online criticism of regimes became more public and common, setting the stage for the Arab Spring. Digital media also allowed women and minorities to enter political discussions, and ultimately, the ensuing protests and revolutions as well. Whether or not the Arab Spring counts as a distinct democratic wave is challenged by scholars on empirical grounds, as Tunisia is the only Arab Spring nation that successfully consolidated into a semi-stable democratic state following its uprising (according to the democracy-evaluating organization Freedom House, as of 2020).N.d. Countries and Territories. Freedom House. Available at . Retrieved 2020-09-24.

Post-2019 protests

Since 2019, worldwide protests have energized democracy movements, focusing on

racial equality Racial equality is a situation in which people of all races and ethnicities are treated in an egalitarian/equal manner. Racial equality occurs when institutions give individuals legal, moral, and political rights. In present-day Western society, ...

human rights Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...

, freedom, democracy, and

social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fu ...

. *

2018–2022 Arab protests The 2018–2022 Arab protests, known as Arab Spring 2.0 or Second Arab Spring, were a series of anti-government protests in several Arab World, Arab countries, including 2018 Tunisian protests, Tunisia, Morocco, 2018 Jordanian protests, Jordan, S ...

2019–2020 Hong Kong protests The Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement, also known as the 2019 Hong Kong protests, or the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests, were a series of demonstrations from 15 March 2019 in response to the introduction by the Hong Kong government ...

2020–2021 Belarusian protests The 2020–2021 Belarusian protests were a series of mass political demonstrations and protests against the Belarusian government and President Alexander Lukashenko. The largest anti-government protests in the history of Belarus, the demonst ...

2019–2022 Chilean protests The 2019–2022 Chilean protests, known in Chile as the ''Estallido Social'' (lit. ''social outburst''), are a series of massive demonstrations and severe riots that originated in Santiago and spread to all regions of Chile, with a greater impact ...

2019–2020 Iranian protests A series of nationwide civil protests in Iran, sometimes known as Bloody November or (using the Iranian calendar) Bloody Aban ( fa, آبان خونین) took place in 2019 and 2020. Initially caused by a 50–200% increase in fuel prices, they ...

, 2021–2022 Iranian protests,

Mahsa Amini protests Civil unrest and protests against the government of Iran associated with the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini ( fa, مهسا امینی) began on 16 September 2022 and are ongoing as of December 2022. Amini had been arrested by the Guida ...

2020–2021 Thai protests In Thailand, protests began in early 2020 with demonstrations against the government of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha. They later expanded to include the unprecedented demands for reform of the Thai monarchy. The protests were initially trig ...

2021–2022 Myanmar protests Protests in Myanmar, known locally as the Spring Revolution ( my, နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေး, ), began in early 2021 in opposition to the coup d'état on 1February, staged by Min Aung Hlaing, the commander-in-chief ...

George Floyd protests The George Floyd protests were a series of protests and civil unrest against police brutality and racism that began in Minneapolis on May 26, 2020, and largely took place during 2020. The civil unrest and protests began as part of internati ...

Protests against responses to the COVID-19 pandemic Protests, demonstrations and strikes are ongoing around the world against national responses to the COVID-19 pandemic by governmental bodies. Some protest against governmental failure to stem the spread of the virus effectively, while others ...

2022 COVID-19 protests in China A series of protests against COVID-19 lockdowns began in mainland China in November 2022. Colloquially referred to as the White Paper Protests ( zh, s=白纸抗议, p=Bái zhǐ kàngyì) or the A4 Revolution ( zh, link=no, s=白纸革命, p=Bá ...

2022 Kazakh protests The 2022 Kazakh unrest, also known as Bloody January () or the January tragedy (), was a series of mass protests that began in Kazakhstan on 2 January 2022 after a sudden sharp increase in liquefied gas prices following the lifting of a governm ...

2022 Sri Lankan protests The 2022 Sri Lankan protests ( si, අරගලය, translit=Aragalaya, lit=Struggle), are mass protests that began in March 2022 against the government of Sri Lanka. The government has been criticized for mismanaging the Sri Lankan economy, ...

Other waves

In a 2018 study in ''Perspectives on Politics'', Seva Gunitsky of the University of Toronto identifies thirteen waves of democracy. His main criterion is rejection of absolute rule. By contrast, Huntington used the much narrower criterion of voting rights for the majority of men. # The Atlantic Wave (1776–1798) # The

Latin American wars of independence The Spanish American wars of independence (25 September 1808 – 29 September 1833; es, Guerras de independencia hispanoamericanas) were numerous wars in Spanish America with the aim of political independence from Spanish rule during the early ...

(1809–1824) # The First Constitutional Wave (1820–1821) # The Romantic-Nationalist Wave (1830–1831) # The Spring of Nations (1848) # The Second Constitutional Wave (1905–1912) # The post-WWI Wave (1919–1922) # The post-WWII Wave (1945–1950) # The African Decolonization Wave (1956–1968) # The Modernization Wave, also known as the "Third" Wave (1974–1988) # The Post-Soviet Wave (1989–1992) # The Color Revolutions (2000–2007) # The

(2011–2012)