Since the 1970s, the number of formally democratic states has grown exponentially whilst coherent alternatives to democracy have steadily diminished in terms of their global relevance. Yet, democracy remains an extremely problematic, conflictual and unfinished enterprise - as a process and a project. The progress of democratization, inside nation states and globally, is partial, unsteady and at times thin, and efforts to extend democratization outside the nation state, whether to international bodies or civil society or the private sphere of the family and even intimate social relations, are sometimes highly contested.

For researchers and scholars, there is an undoubted challenge in understanding and interpreting the multi-layered and multi-dimension processes of democratization and gauging their significance for the social and political world. This collection explains aspects or experiments in democratization across the world and relates the substantial body of work on comparative, cross-regional and cross-case work across thematic fields of research. With this collection, researchers, policy makers, students, social and economic organizations such as businesses and labour movements, and NGOs in fields such as development, democracy promotion, social rights and international relations, can make sense of the best of a broad and potentially intimidating field of study.

Volume One: Theories, Methods and Historical Perspectives

Volume Two: States and Political Economies of Democratization

Volume Three: Civil Society, Human Rights and Culture in Democratization

Volume Four: The Global Politics and Globalization of Democratization