New Authoritarianism

Challenges to Democracy in the 21st century The author deals with comparative aspects of contemporary authoritarianism. Authoritarian tendencies have appeared in several “old democracies” but their main successes take place in several states which departed from dictatorial regimes recently. The book contains case-studies of contemporary Hungarian, Kenyan, Polish, Russian and Turkish regimes. The third wave of democratization unlike the first and the second, has not been followed by the reverse wave. However, in several countries democratically elected leaders interpret democracy narrowly, as the rule of majority only. Other conditions for democratic government (such as the rule of law, protecting human rights) are ignored. Such system of government differs from the authoritarian model as defined by Juan J. Linz and can best be called “new authoritarianism”. The future of new authoritarianism remains uncertain. From the Contents: Part One: Theoretical Perspectives Adam Przeworski: “A Conceptual History of Political regimes: Democracy, Dictatorship, and Authoritarianism; Zygmunt Bauman: “Some of the Foremost Challenges to the Status Quo”; Janusz Reykowski: “The Massive Exchange of Elites as a Mean of Formation of the Authoritarian Regime; Jerzy J. Wiatr: “New and Old Authoritarianism in a Comparative Perspective” Part Two: Country Studies: Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o:“ Authoritarianism with an Electoral Face in Africa”; Ilter Turan: “The Rise of Populist Electoral Authoritarianism in Turkey: a Case of Culturally Rooted Recidivism”; Jerzy Jaskiernia: “ Authoritarian Tendencies in the Polish Political System”; Nataliya Wielikaya: “New Authoritarianism in Russia”; Hans-Georg Heinrich: “New Authoritarianism in Hungary”