Prospects of Democracy - A study of 172 countries (Hardcover)

"Prospects of Democracy" is the most extensive comparative survey of the state and conditions of democracy ever made. It covers 172 contemporary states, with historical data on the measures of democracy and on explanatory variables extending back to the 1850s.
Presenting a comprehensive exploration of democratization, its successes and failures, Tatu Vanhanen makes predictions on the prospects for democracy for single countries and for seven regions of the world. Never satisfied with presenting merely his own data, Vanhanen includes contributions from five commentators: Mitchell A. Seligson on Latin America; Samuel Decalo and John W. Forje on Africa; John Henderson on Oceania and Ilter Turan on why some of the countries that pass Vanhanen's democratic threshold cannot in fact be seen as democracies.