DC Girl, "First I'd like to say a few things about the authors I mentioned. I don't know about IR students, but comparative politics students worship them like god :) I don?t mean to dig into your knowledge base (as long as the arguments are strong), but I think the authors that you mention, Thomas Friedman (is this the same guy, the NY Times Columnist?), Rudyard Kipling, they're magazine writers, or story writers, what we call in academia. Noam Chomsky (extreme left), Edward Said, are good writers, but I wouldn't quote them when I argue on democracy or democratization. " I'd definatley read the authors you mentioned this summer. Rudyard Kipling? No. Its Robert Kaplan, who is an analyst for the Atlantic Monthly. I would quote them, even Zakaria, who is also a journalist/editor of Newsweek, when I talk about democracy. These people test the validity of the theories, in my view, and I see no reason not to believe in these people's accounts/analysis. " If you're bringing in American diplomacy and foreign policy to argue why some countries democratized while some didn't, I have not much to say. Whether America will support dictators or want democracy in that country is a different game, of foreign policy. Their stance in a country will change depending on their political interest; I think you yourself mentioned this somewhere in the thread, with the example of US support in Pakistan. " I still believe that many democracies were due to direct american pressure to democratize. Otherwise, in many countries, there was neither drive nor motivation for demcracy. Let's look at the Russian example: Democracy filled the political vaccum ater the collapse of the Soviet Union. If any other -ism or - cracy were being promoted, they would have adopted to those. Look at what happened or is happening in some of the CIS states: islamic radicalism is now slowly developing as a substitute to democracy. Also the point to note is: Although they democratized in the 90s, the lack of institutions and traditions resulted in autocratic regimes.. This is my point. The Americans did promote and export democracies in many countries and forced them to democratzie, in some other places, they did not because of strategic and other interests. Otherwise how do we understand Nepal's democracy and Bhutan's autocracy? You are isolating the democratziation process to individual countries, I see it in a broader framework of American and in Nepal's case, Indian foreign policies agendas. " "..but after the cold ward, when people had access to those formerly unaccessible places or off limit places, people saw how they really were, and surprinsingly enough, the State Department proved right! Yes, certain countries were/are not ready for the transition" You haven't proved this point, how? " Look at the examples of CIS countries and others such as Georgia, Yugoslvia, Armenia, Ajerbaijan. " I never said all of the countries that started the process are full democracies now. In fact, out of the 100 or so countries that entered into transition, only a few have attained a well functioning democracy, 20 or so are en route to becoming successful, while some countries have clearly failed letting the authoritarian regimes re-solidify, like in Uzbekistan, Togo, Belarus. Yes, there are reasons why democracy failed (and personally, I think the type of authoritative regime in the past has partially to do with it). But democracy failed doesn't mean authoritarian regimes are better. " No, I am not saying autoritarian regimes are better either. I am just saying that democracy in those countries failed, and the failure of democracy was disastrous to those nations. Many people died there in the 10 eyars of democratziation than the last 20 eyars of communist or whatever regimes they had there. So its a clear indication of their failure to adopt the democracti culture, values and traditions. And why is that, whyc couldn't they adopt those values? This is where my argument comes in: they w ere not ready to embrace those at the first place because of poverty (in mnay cases) and ethnic divisions. " Yes, comparing Nepal with Italy would be a fatal mistake. I'm not comparing Italy and Nepal; I'm only using historical institutionalism to explain why the transition period in Nepal is so difficult. You can take any literature on historical insti. for that matter. Putnam in that article analyzes three or four different regions in Italy to see how institutions of the past shape the process of transition, thereby making one region industrially and politically developed than the other. Nepal's history of political institutions begins during the Rana period, but because they didn't get much chance to foster, political and social institutions that constitute the civil society are weak- one reason why transition is becoming painfully difficult today. " Sorry I somehow misread your earlier point on Italy. So my apologies for this miscommunication. I will defintaley look at Putnam's article.