Democratic peace-building and conflict prevention

by Luc Reychler

"In this book political scientist and peace researcher Luc Reychler gets to the heart of a major transformation of the international society at the end of the twentieth century, namely democratization. It addresses questions about the definition of democracy; the spread of it; the assessment of progress and the factors influencing the successes of failures of the transition process. Reychler rejects theories that posit that democracy is not inherently universal. He argues instead that a consolidated democracy has empirically shown to be the best instrument for guaranteeing freedom, respect for human rights, welfare and security. The problem however is in the democratic peace building process. The devil is in the transition. Many efforts will fail. But within a generation, he expects a fourth wave of democracy throughout the world that few analysts would have dared to imagine."--Jacket.