| Summary: | Essays exploring a world dramatically transformed by the collapse of communism-and the prospects for democracy in that realigned reality. The breakup of the Soviet Union's external empire in Eastern Europe, soon followed by the demise of the USSR itself, destroyed the bipolar structure that had characterized world politics for almost half a century. But while the dramatic collapse of communism left no room for doubt that the era of the Cold War had come to an end, there was very little agreement about the nature of the new international order being born. This book explores the emerging post-Cold War international system and its implications for the future expansion and consolidation of democracy. Bringing together both experts on international relations and scholars of democracy from Europe, North America, and Asia, it examines the link between these two subjects in a way that is rarely done. While a large literature has emerged in recent years on the effects of democracy on international relations (the debate over what is often called the theory of "democratic peace"), the authors of this volume instead examine the other side of this relationship-the impact of the international system on the prospects for democracy.
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