Journal of Nusantara Studies 2021, Vol 6(1) 394-400

Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin

ISSN 0127-9386 (Online)
http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol6iss1pp394-400

BOOK REVIEW

THE THIRD WAVE: DEMOCRATIZATION IN THE LATE TWENTIETH

CENTURY, BY SAMUEL P HUNTINGTON. OKLAHOMA: UNIVERSITY OF
OKLAHOMA PRESS, 1991, 384 PAGES. ISBN: 9788475099606

Mohd Irwan Syazli Saidin

Centre for Research in History, Politics and International Affairs,

Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities,
43600, UKM Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia.
Corresponding author: irwansyazli@ukm.edu.my

Received: 07.10.2020 Accepted: 01.12.2020

ABSTRACT
The discourse on democratization features prominently in the work of Samuel P. Huntington (1927-
2008) entitled ‘The Third Wave’ which was published in 1991. Huntington was one of the most
influential political scientists and previously held the position of university professor at the prestigious
Harvard Kennedy School in the US. He authored many academic books on comparative politics and
was the founder of the Foreign Policy Journal as well as the former president of the American Political
Science Association (IPSA). Written in six interesting chapters, Huntington’s Third Wave provides a
clear-cut discussion on fundamental questions of when, why and how democratization occurs in
different parts of the world. This fascinating book has contributed significantly to the empirical analyses
on comparative transition to democracy and autocracy in around thirty global southern states, primarily
in Latin America and Asia, and remains relevant for discourses on any future wave of global
democratization.

Cite as: Syazli Saidin, M. I. (2021). The third wave: Democratization in the late twentieth century.
(Book review). Journal of Nusantara Studies, 6(1), 394-400.
http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol6iss1pp394-400

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http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol6iss1pp394-400

REVIEW
The text by Samuel Huntington (1991) titled ‘The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late
Twentieth Century’ discussed fundamental ideas about, and provided an in-depth
understanding of, the process of democratization by explaining its waves, factors, conditions,
challenges and future prospects. This paper reviews his detailed perspectives on waves of
democratization and argues the possibility of future new waves – specifically the prospect of a
‘fourth wave’, based on recent developments in the Middle East and North Africa, particularly
the post-Arab Uprisings’ phenomenon that can be compared with previous surges in
democratization.
The word democratization specifically refers to political changes that move in a
democratic direction. In other words, democratization is a process of developing and
establishing democracy in a non-democratic state. Huntington gave a clear definition on
democratization, as he defines it as a process of transitions from non-democratic to democratic
regimes that occur within a specified period of time and that significantly outnumber transitions
in the opposite direction during that same period of time. He also adds that a democratic
transition normally involves liberalization or partial democratization in political systems that
do not become fully democratic (Huntington 1991, p. 15). Democratization, in other words, is
a continuous process which is influenced and determined by many factors and conditions in
order for authoritarian states to move successfully towards liberal democracy.
When speaking of the comparative history of democratization, as debated in the book,
Huntington claims that empirically three waves of democratization occurred in the modern
world, stretching from the Northern Hemisphere to the Global South and each wave affected a
number of countries. The first two waves of democratization were followed by a reverse wave
in which some, but not all, of the countries that had previously made the transition to democracy
reverted to a non-democratic regime. As Huntington pointed out, the first long wave of
democratization (1828-1926), can be seen in the American and French revolutions which
brought these states to nowadays serve as models for liberal democratic governments. The
same circumstances also apply to Switzerland, Great Britain, Italy, Argentina, Ireland, Sweden
and several smaller European states which made a transition to fully-fledged democracy from
monarchic or autocratic regimes before the turn of the 20th century. The emergence of national
democratic institutions, expansion of universal suffrage, introduction of the secret ballot,
periodic elections and the establishment of prime ministerial or presidential responsibility and
ministerial cabinets were the criteria adopted by the states mentioned above (Huntington,
1991).
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http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol6iss1pp394-400

Following the end of World War I, the trend towards global democracy was tapering
off and reversing which led to the first reverse wave of democratization (1922-1942). During
this period, several states returned to the traditional forms of authoritarian regime and military
rule and some other states became more brutal with pervasive forms of totalitarianism. As
Huntington stresses in the book, the reversals occurred largely in those ‘new democratic states’
which had adopted democratic rule just before or after World War I, where not only democracy
was new, but also the nation and political system. Italy, Germany, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania,
Yugoslavia, Austria, Japan, Brazil and Argentina were among the states which were involved
with the non-democratic transition and reflected the rise of left wing ideologies such as
Fascism, Nazism and Communism and also militaristic ideologies. There was also an uprising
of strong anti-democratic movement in both France and Britain as a result of the economic
depression which erupted in the 1930s. Indirectly, there had been a sign that back then,
democracy was established on shaky grounds (Huntington, 1991).
Towards the end of World War II, a second short wave of democratization occurred
between 1943 and 1962. The successful allied occupation had promoted the inauguration of
democratic governments in West Germany, Austria, Italy, Turkey, Greece, Japan, Korea and
several Latin America countries such as Brazil, Costa Rica, Argentina, Peru, Colombia and
Venezuela. During this period, Huntington argues that the military dictatorship was much
debilitated and all of these countries were practicing or were only starting to implement
elections in order to form a legitimate representative government. Apart from that, the
formation of the Atlantic Charter in 1941 which urged the Western States to end their colonial
rule and promoted decolonization in many parts of Asia and Africa, produced a number of new
independent states such as Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and
Nigeria. Although these new states were not seen as fully democratic states as in Western
Europe and the United States, there was at least an effort to promote democratic rule through
the formation of constitutions, general elections, referendums and the establishment of several
new political parties (Huntington, 1991).
The second short wave of democratization however did not last long as many states
especially in Asia, Latin America and Africa shifted and ‘reversed’ the wave moving towards
authoritarianism via military coups, emergency rule and the implementation of martial law, as
in the case of the Philippines and Indonesia in Southeast Asia, under the leadership of
Ferdinand Marcos and Suharto respectively. The second reverse wave of democratization
(1958-1975) showed that military intervention was the biggest challenge to be faced, in order
to sustain a democratic government. As pointed out by Huntington, the global swing away from
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democracy in the 1960s and 1970s was impressive when 13 governments in the world were the
product of military coups by 1962 and this number had increased to 38 by 1975. These regime
transitions had triggered broader pessimism about the future of democracy in many developing
countries and also in a few developed countries. However, in the 15 years following the end of
the Portuguese dictatorship in 1974, democratic regimes started to replace autocratic states in
approximately thirty countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America (Huntington, 1991).
Between 1973 and 1990, as emphasized by Huntington, the absolute numbers of
authoritarian regimes dramatically decreased which led to the advent of a new era of global
democracy known as the third wave of democratization. The military regimes that had
governed many parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America collapsed and were replaced by civilian
governments such as those ruling in Greece (1974), Spain (1975), India (1977) Ecuador and
Peru (1979), Bolivia (1982), Turkey (1983), Uruguay and Brazil (1984), the Philippines (1986),
South Korea (1987) and Pakistan (1988). As a result, movements toward democracy seemed
to have gained strength and support from the majority of the world population. At the end of
the 1980s and in the early 1990s, as claimed by Huntington, the democratic wave engulfed the
USSR and the communist world. Countries such as Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria,
Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Romania managed to free themselves from Moscow’s grip
and began the political transition to democracy and a multi-party system. Overall, Huntington’s
book concludes that the movement towards democracy during this wave was a global one. The
‘third wave of democratization’ moved across southern Europe, sweeping through Latin
America, moving on to large parts of Asia and decimating the dictatorship in the Soviet Empire.
The book ends with a question to readers - is the third wave of democratization still continuing
or is there any evidence of a third reverse wave or a fourth wave of democratization? To unravel
this issue, I specifically refer to studies by Larry Diamond (1999, 2011 & 2012), Muhamad
Olimat (2008 & 2011) and Philip Howard and Muzammil Hussain (2013) which offer some
justifiable explanation about a post third wave democracy after Huntington’s legacy of the
‘Third Wave’. The work of Larry Diamond (1999) entitled ‘Developing Democracy: Toward
Consolidation’ has delved profoundly into the future of Huntington’s third wave and
impending fourth wave of democratization. By questioning is the third wave of democratization
over? Diamond established that from 1990 to 1996, the number and percentage of democracies
in the world had increased every year thus producing a democratic breakthrough without
precedent in world history. However, issues about freedom levels and human rights in many
developing countries especially in Latin America and certain parts of Asia that create the
possibility of a ‘third reverse’ wave, cannot be blindly dismissed (Diamond 1999, p. 24)
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As Diamond pointed out, since the democratic transition occurred in the 1980s,
Pakistan and India declined from “partly free” states to the edges of political chaos, with
massive political corruption and heavy-handed presidential intervention forcing out one elected
government after another. Chile, Brazil, the Philippines and Argentina experienced problems
with civil liberties that resulted in ‘semi-autocratic’ countries, while Thailand, Turkey, Algeria
and several Sub-Saharan African states faced a series of military interventions, both overt and
subtle. However, even if these states’ progress towards democratic consolidation was partial
and slow, crises were repeated and the quality of democracy deteriorated, in some respects,
there were strong signs from civilians which demonstrated that there was no chance for a return
to authoritarian rule. The post-1990s has proved that democracy still remains a valued goal as
no anti-democratic ideology has emerged to challenge the continued global ideological
hegemony of democracy; thus suggesting that there is no real ‘third reverse’ wave of
democratization occurring after the third wave (Diamond 1999, p. 29).
If there is no evidence of a real third reverse wave, will there be a fourth wave of
democratization? According to Diamond, the possibility of a fourth wave of democratization
in the world rests most pivotally on the future of China and several other regions which
encompass the Middle East, East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. At the moment, following the
events of the Arab Spring that erupted in 2011 and several political transitions in Asia, it seems
that only the Middle East and Southeast Asia have shown a promising future for democracy in
that region in the coming years (Diamond 2012; Howard & Hussain 2013). The reality is that
the time to begin a process of real political liberalization in Middle Eastern countries is long
overdue. To this date, most of the authoritarian regimes in the Arab world are highly corrupted
and are consistently experiencing challenges and ‘threats’ to their political legitimacy.
The uprisings against autocratic regimes that swept across the Middle East and North
Africa particularly in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria and several other Arab states appeared as
the fourth wave that many scholars and activists had reasonably predicted and when compared
to other regions in the past ‘transformative third wave’ (Diamond 2011; Howard & Hussain
2013). In addition, a view from Muhammad Olimat (2008, p. 24-25) is that the fourth wave of
democratization actually begun several years ago when the United States launched its ‘global
war on terror’ campaign in West Asia, particularly after the 9/11 tragedy. When the former
United States president, George W. Bush declared his initiative to democratize the West Asia
and the Middle East regions, particularly Iraq, this represented an exclusive fourth wave of
democratization. In effect, it sought to transform the Islamic world in general and the Arab-
Middle East in particular into a region of democracy (Olimat 2008, p. 25). The US-led attempts
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to install democracy in Iraq seemed to fall into the category of externally ‘imposed’
democratization.
The possibilities for the introduction and consolidation of democracy are impacted by
many factors as well as grand historical and social forces such as the failure of empires, the
diffusion of models, the movement of peoples, the changes of generations and the
transformation of values and class structures that come with economic development. These
forces have potential to generate new pressures for democratization in the twenty-first century,
as evidenced in the past democratic waves (Diamond 1999, p. 277). Although Huntington
claims that there were common elements in the previous waves of democratization, there is
some uniqueness with the recent uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa as the
emergence of new social media played a crucial role in promoting democratic transition and
regime change - it helped to organize and mobilize the mass protest more effectively, generated
political awareness among citizens more widely and frequently inspired people to be more
responsible concerning the political, social and economic issues in the country. Inevitably, not
only in the Arab region is the role of new social media affecting the process of democratization,
but in many parts of Asia and this effect is very much a work in progress. By analyzing the
way several countries evolved from Huntington’s ‘Third Wave’ of democratization, I argue
that the Arab Uprisings’ phenomenon and the events in its aftermath have somehow started
democratization’s fourth wave, as in the case of Tunisia and Morocco and perhaps the fourth
reverse wave if we refer to the political developments in Egypt and Turkey.
Relying on years of comprehensive fieldwork, along with critical and detailed
observation, Huntington’s legacies on the ‘wave of democratization’ have undoubtedly placed
this book at the heart of comparative democracy studies. The causes, challenges and trends of
authoritarianism and democratization at the global level illuminate the complexity of a number
of democratic and political transitions in many parts of the modern world, especially in Asia
and the Middle East. There is a great need to increase public awareness about the history of the
long existence, durability and sustainability of democracy and democratic consolidation around
the globe and the ‘Third Wave’ is certainly an important contribution to that goal. Although it
has been around 30 years since the first publication of this book in 1991, Huntington’s
outstanding work definitely stands as a brilliant introductory volume for students, policy
makers and researchers to understand the development and genesis of global democracy,
democratization and authoritarianism from the 19th century up until the present day. It is
therefore considered as an excellent reference that continuously contributes to the discourse on
contemporary democracy and democratization.
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REFERENCES
Diamond, L. (1999). Developing democracy: Towards consolidation. The John Hopkins
University Press.
Diamond, L. (2011, May 22). A fourth wave or false start? Foreign Affairs. Retrieved from
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2011-05-22/fourth-wave-or-
false-start
Diamond, L. (2012). The coming wave: China and East Asian democracy. Journal of
Democracy, 23(1), 5-13.
Howard, P. N., & Hussain, M. M. (2013). Democracy’s fourth wave? Digital media and the
Arab spring. Oxford University Press.
Olimat, M. (2008). The fourth wave of democratization. The American Journal of Islamic
Social Sciences, 25(2), 16-42.
Olimat, M. (2011). The fourth wave: Revolution and democratization in the Arab Middle East.
Journal of International Women’s Studies, 12(3), 1-6.

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