political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

, the waves of democracy or waves of democratization are major surges of

democracy Democracy (from , ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state. Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitiv ...

that have occurred in history. Although the term appears at least as early as 1887, it was popularized by

Samuel P. Huntington Samuel Phillips Huntington (April 18, 1927December 24, 2008) was an American political scientist, adviser, and academic. He spent more than half a century at Harvard University, where he was director of Harvard's Center for International Affair ...

, a political scientist at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, in his article published in the ''

Journal of Democracy The ''Journal of Democracy'' is a quarterly academic journal established in 1990 and an official publication of the National Endowment for Democracy's International Forum for Democratic Studies. It covers the study of democracy, democratic regi ...

'' and further expounded in his 1991 book, '' The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century''. Democratization waves have been linked to sudden shifts in the distribution of power among the great powers, which created openings and incentives to introduce sweeping domestic reforms. Scholars debate the precise number of democratic waves. Huntington describes three waves: the first "slow" wave of the 19th century, a second wave after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, and a third wave beginning in the mid-1970s in southern Europe, followed by Latin America and Asia. Though his book does not discuss the collapse of the Soviet bloc, a number of scholars have taken the "Third Wave" to include the democratic transitions of 1989–1991.

Seva Gunitsky Seva Gunitsky is an American political scientist. He is an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on the ways global forces and international politics affect democracy and domestic politics. He i ...

of the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

has referred to 13 waves, from the

Atlantic Revolutions The Age of Revolution is a period from the late-18th to the mid-19th centuries during which a number of significant revolutionary movements occurred in most of Europe and the Americas. The period is noted for the change from Absolutism (Europea ...

of the 18th century to the

Arab Spring The Arab Spring () was a series of Nonviolent resistance, anti-government protests, Rebellion, uprisings, and Insurgency, armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began Tunisian revolution, in Tunisia ...

of the 21st. Scholars have also noted that the appearance of "waves" of democracy largely vanishes when women's suffrage is taken into account. Some countries change their positions quite dramatically:

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

, which is typically included as part of the first wave, did not grant women the right to vote until 1971.

Definition

In his 1991 book, '' The Third Wave'', Huntington defined a democratic wave as "a group of transitions from nondemocratic to democratic regimes that occur within a specified period of time and that significantly outnumber transitions in the opposite directions during that period of time." (Huntington 1991, 15) Mainwaring and Aníbal Pérez-Liñán (2014, 70) offer a similar definition: "any historical period during which there is a sustained and significant increase in the proportion of competitive regimes (democracies and semi-democracies)." Gunitsky (2018) defines a democratic wave as a clustering of attempted or successful democratic transitions, coupled with linkages among the transitions in that cluster.

Huntington's three waves

First

The first wave of democracy (1828–1926) began in the early 19th century when

suffrage Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...

was granted to the majority of white males in the United States ("

Jacksonian democracy Jacksonian democracy, also known as Jacksonianism, was a 19th-century political ideology in the United States that restructured a number of federal institutions. Originating with the seventh U.S. president, Andrew Jackson and his supporters, i ...

"). This was followed by France, Britain, Canada, Australia, Italy, and Argentina, and a few others, before 1900. At its peak, after the breakup of the Russian, German, Austrian, and Ottoman empires in 1918, the first wave saw 29 democracies in the world. Reversal began in 1922, when

Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who, upon assuming office as Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister, became the dictator of Fascist Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 un ...

rose to power in Italy. The collapse primarily hit newly formed democracies, which could not stand against the aggressive rise of expansionist communist, fascist, and militaristic authoritarian or totalitarian movements that systematically rejected democracy. The nadir of the first wave came in 1942, when the number of democracies in the world dropped to a mere twelve.

Second

The second wave began following the Allied victory in

, and crested nearly 20 years later, in 1962, with 36 recognised democracies in the world. The second wave ebbed as well at this point, and the total number dropped to 30 democracies between 1962 and the mid-1970s.

Third

The third wave began with the 1974

Carnation Revolution The Carnation Revolution (), code-named Operation Historic Turn (), also known as the 25 April (), was a military coup by military officers that overthrew the Estado Novo government on 25 April 1974 in Portugal. The coup produced major socia ...

in Portugal and the late-1970s

Spanish transition to democracy The Spanish transition to democracy, known in Spain as (; ) or (), is a period of History of Spain, modern Spanish history encompassing the regime change that moved from the Francoist dictatorship to the consolidation of a parliamentary system ...

. This was followed by the historic democratic transitions in Latin America in the 1980s, Asia-Pacific countries (

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

, and

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

) from 1986 to 1988, Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and sub-Saharan Africa, beginning in 1989. The expansion of democracy in some regions was stunning. In Latin America, only Colombia, Costa Rica, and Venezuela were democratic by 1978, and only Cuba and Haiti remained authoritarian by 1995, when the wave had swept across twenty countries. Huntington points out that three-fourths of the new democracies were Roman Catholic; most Protestant countries already were democratic. He emphasizes the Vatican Council of 1962, which turned the Church from defenders of the old established order into an opponent of totalitarianism. Countries undergoing or having undergone a transition to democracy during a wave are sometimes subject to

democratic backsliding Democratic backsliding or autocratization is a process of regime change toward autocracy in which the exercise of political power becomes more arbitrary and repressive. The process typically restricts the space for public contest and politi ...

. Political scientists and theorists believe that , the third wave had crested and would soon begin to ebb, just as its predecessors did in the first and second waves. In the period immediately following the onset of the "war on terror" after the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States, some backsliding ensued. How significant or lasting that erosion is remains a subject of debate. Third-wave countries, including Portugal, Spain, South Korea, and Taiwan became fully consolidated democracies rather than backsliding. As of 2020, they even had stronger democracies than many counterparts with a much longer history as democratic countries.

Arab Spring

Experts have associated the collapse of several dictatorships in the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

and

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

, a phenomenon known as the

, with the events that followed the fall of the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

in Eastern Europe. The similarity between the two phenomena inspired hope for a fourth wave of

democratization Democratization, or democratisation, is the structural government transition from an democratic transition, authoritarian government to a more democratic political regime, including substantive political changes moving in a democratic direction ...

. A few months after the apparent beginning of the transition, most of the Arab political openings closed, causing an inevitable pullback. In particular in Egypt, the government, controlled by the military, did not facilitate the democratic transition in any way. On the contrary, it strove to silence revolt by arresting peaceful protesters and by trying them in military tribunals. A concrete example is provided by the story of Maikel Nabil, an Egyptian blogger convicted and sentenced to three years in prison for "insulting the military establishment". The main causes of the regression and crisis in all the affected countries are attributed to corruption, unemployment, social injustice, and autocratic political systems. Despite the apparently unsolvable situation, the UN, under the administration of

Ban Ki-moon Ban Ki-moon (born 13 June 1944) is a South Korean politician and diplomat who served as the eighth secretary-general of the United Nations between 2007 and 2016. Prior to his appointment as secretary-general, Ban was the South Korean minister ...

, tried to work as a mediator between the governments and the protesters. Political scholar

Larry Diamond Larry Jay Diamond (born October 2, 1951) is an American political sociologist and scholar in the field of democracy studies. Diamond is a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University's main center ...

has claimed that the role of the United States in the democratic transition of the Arab world was fundamental.

Digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, an ...

played a large role in creating favorable conditions for uprisings, helped to publicize key igniting events, and then facilitated those uprisings and their diffusion. But digital media did not do this alone or as suddenly as some observers have claimed. The story of the Arab Spring, according to Howard and Hussain, began over a decade ago as internet access and mobile phones began to diffuse rapidly through North Africa and the Middle East. The citizens that could afford internet access, the wealthy and powerful, mostly, played a huge role in the

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

Tunisia Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...

, and

Bahrain Bahrain, officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, is an island country in West Asia. Situated on the Persian Gulf, it comprises a small archipelago of 50 natural islands and an additional 33 artificial islands, centered on Bahrain Island, which mak ...

uprisings Rebellion is an uprising that resists and is organized against one's government. A rebel is a person who engages in a rebellion. A rebel group is a consciously coordinated group that seeks to gain political control over an entire state or a ...

. Over time, online criticism of regimes became more public and common, setting the stage for the Arab Spring. Digital media also allowed women and minorities to enter political discussions, and ultimately, the ensuing protests and revolutions as well. Whether or not the Arab Spring counts as a distinct democratic wave is challenged by scholars on empirical grounds, as Tunisia is the only Arab Spring nation that successfully consolidated into a semi-stable democratic state following its uprising (according to the democracy-evaluating organization Freedom House, as of 2020). Since the accession of

Kais Saied Kais Saied ( ; born 22 February 1958) is a Tunisian politician, jurist and retired assistant professor of law currently serving as the fifth president of Tunisia since October 2019. He was president of the Tunisian Association of Constitutional ...

to the office of president, Tunisia has seen a decline in the democratic freedoms enjoyed by its citizens.

2010s–present

From the beginning of the 2010s and after the

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of market decline in economies around the world that occurred from late 2007 to mid-2009.

, worldwide pro-democracy and anti-

protests have focused on

racial equality Racial equality is when people of all Race (human categorization), races and Ethnic group, ethnicities are treated in an egalitarian/equal manner. Racial equality occurs when institutions give individuals legal, moral, and Civil and political r ...

human rights Human rights are universally recognized Morality, moral principles or Social norm, norms that establish standards of human behavior and are often protected by both Municipal law, national and international laws. These rights are considered ...

, freedom, and

social justice Social justice is justice in relation to the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society where individuals' rights are recognized and protected. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has of ...

. * Anti-austerity movement in Greece *

Occupy movement The Occupy movement was an international populist Social movement, socio-political movement that expressed opposition to Social equality, social and economic inequality and to the perceived lack of real democracy around the world. It aimed primar ...

* Gezi Park protests *

Euromaidan Euromaidan ( ; , , ), or the Maidan Uprising, was a wave of Political demonstration, demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine, which began on 21 November 2013 with large protests in Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in Kyiv. The p ...

2014 Hong Kong protests A series of sit-in street protests, often called the Umbrella Revolution and sometimes used interchangeably with Umbrella Movement, or Occupy Movement, occurred in Hong Kong from 26 September to 15 December 2014. The protests began after th ...

Protests against Donald Trump Protests against Donald Trump have occurred in the United States and internationally since Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign, his entry into the 2016 presidential campaign. Protests have expressed opposition to Trump's campaign rhetoric, ...

* Protests against Daniel Ortega * 2018–2024 Arab protests * Sardines movement * Protests against Elon Musk *

2019–2020 Hong Kong protests The 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests (also known by other names) were a series of demonstrations against the Hong Kong government's introduction of a bill to amend the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance in regard to extradition. It was the largest ...

* 2019–2022 Chilean protests * 2019–2020 Iranian protests, 2021–2022 Iranian protests, Mahsa Amini protests * 2020 #EndSARS protests * 2020 Polish LGBT protests *

2020–2021 Belarusian protests The 2020–2021 Belarusian protests were a series of mass Demonstration (political), political demonstrations and protests against the Government of Belarus, Belarusian government and President Alexander Lukashenko. The largest anti-government ...

* 2020–2021 Thai protests *

George Floyd protests The George Floyd protests were a series of protests, riots, and demonstrations against police brutality that began in Minneapolis in the United States on May 26, 2020. The protests and civil unrest began in Minneapolis as Reactions to the mu ...

* 2021 Greek protests * 2021–2023 Myanmar protests * Protests against Russian invasion of Ukraine * Protests against responses to the COVID-19 pandemic,

2022 COVID-19 protests in China A series of Protests against responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, protests against COVID-19 lockdowns began in mainland China in November 2022. Colloquially referred to as the White Paper Protests ( zh, s=白纸抗议, p=Bái zhǐ kàngyì) or t ...

* 2022 Kazakh protests *

2022 Sri Lankan protests The 2022 Sri Lankan protests, commonly known as Aragalaya (), were a series of mass protests that began in March 2022 against the government of Sri Lanka. The government was heavily criticized for mismanaging the Economy of Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan ...

* 2023 Polish protests * 2023–2024 Georgian protests * 2024 Student–People's uprising * 2024–present Serbian anti-corruption protests * 2024–2025 Georgian protests * Protests against the second presidency of Donald Trump * Response to the Department of Government Efficiency * 2025 Slovak protests * 2025 Philippine protests * 2025 Turkish protests * Gaza war protests

Gunitsky's 13 waves

In a 2018 study in ''

Perspectives on Politics ''Perspectives on Politics'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering political science. It was established in 2003 and is published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association. The editors- ...

'',

of the

identifies 13 waves of democracy. His main criterion is rejection of

autocracy Autocracy is a form of government in which absolute power is held by the head of state and Head of government, government, known as an autocrat. It includes some forms of monarchy and all forms of dictatorship, while it is contrasted with demo ...

. By contrast, Huntington used the much narrower criterion of voting rights for the majority of men. # Atlantic Wave (1776–1798) # Latin American wars of independence (1809–1824) # First Constitutional Wave (1820–1821) # Romantic-Nationalist Wave (1830–1831) # Spring of Nations (1848–1849) # Second Constitutional Wave (1905–1912) # Post-WWI Wave (1919–1922) # Post-WWII Wave (1945–1950) # African Decolonization Wave (1956–1968) # Modernization Wave, also known as the "Third" Wave (1974–1988) # Post-Soviet Wave (1989–1992) # Colour revolutions (2000–2007) #

(2011–2012)