Favorable Conditions and Electoral Revolutions

Abstract

From 1996 to 2005 a wave of electoral revolutions swept through east Central Europe, the Balkans, and Soviet successor states. The success of these revolutions and their concentration in the post-communist world reflect favorable political and social conditions, as well as the fact that the common structures and policies of communist regimes created unusually good conditions for diffusion of the electoral model after communism’s end. These structural conditions led international donors to concentrate democracy assistance in this region. Efforts to support electoral revolutions in countries with less supportive conditions and less favorable attitudes toward the West and democracy are likely to be more problematic