Democratization in the Balkans, 1990-2002

The end of the Cold War and the formation of electoral democracies in the Central, Eastern and Southeast European countries have caused the emergence of an extensive literature focusing on the qualitative and quantitative changes with respect to the various aspects of the transition phase and the consolidation of democracy in these countries, and theories attempting to account for the transformation have abounded since 1989. Part of the reason for the interest is attributable to the three previous “waves” of democratization and the fact that there was a certain degree of intellectual bias in favor of liberalism to observe the simultaneous transformation in the postcommunist countries towards economic liberalism and the formation of liberal democracies. The process of democratization has been discussed from a variety of theoretical and empirical positions.