There and back again: democratization, autocratization and democratic resilience

The article introduces the “Fifty Years of the Third Wave” special issue of Democratization. The special issue brings together 11 contributions which commemorate the 50th anniversary of the start of the Third Wave of Democratization with Portugal’s Carnation Revolution in 1974. Together, they take stock of the state of democracy globally and regionally. They discuss historical and recent trends in democratization and autocratization, the performance of democracies in creating peace, as well as threats to democracy and the capacity of democracies to remain resilient in the face of these threats. Building on the insights from the articles in this issue, this introduction first presents an overview of the drivers and processes of democratization during the Third Wave, followed by a discussion of the challenges to democracy that have led to the wave’s demise and the start of a wave of autocratization during the early 2010s. The article ends with a synthesis of our understanding of democratic resilience, based on the contributions and the broader literature. This synthesis shows that democratic resilience is best understood as a dynamic, continuously evolving process, rather than a static set of determinants.