Waves of Democracy: Social Movements and Political Change

by John Markoff

Waves of Democracy looks at two centuries of history of democratization as a series of multicontinental episodes in which social movements and elite power holders in many countries converged to reorganize political systems. Democracy is defined and redefined in these episodes. John Markoff examines several ways in which governing elites of national states mimic each other and ways in which social movements and elites interact. There is no other book written for undergraduates that looks at democracy over such a broad sweep of time and across so many countries and cultures.

Genres: Politics, History, Nonfiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

John Gregory Markoff is a journalist best known for his work covering technology at The New York Times for 28 years until his retirement in 2016, and a book and series of articles about the 1990s pursuit and capture of hacker Kevin Mitnick.

Reviews

[Alice Löffler]

Although sometimes quite repetitive, the updated version gives a comprehensive overview of the history of demoracy.

[Danyel]

I really enjoyed the first chapter and the ways in which is described democratic and anti-democratic development as waves occurring in divergent locales. The rest of the book bored me too tears but I had to read it for a Political Science course. The tragic life of a university student.

[Lisa]

I read this as a text book for a class on transitional democracies. Over all, it is a good history on developing democracies around the world. However, since it was printed in 1996, it is missing the crucial democratic developments of the 90s and 2000s. Still, as a history book, it is very interesting.