Peoples and States after 1989: The Political Costs of Incomplete National Revolutions

As communism was collapsing, both the discipline of political science and American foreign policy were becoming captivated by two concepts—the third wave of democratization and the democratic peace. The third wave of democratization is the "worldwide movement to democracy" that occurred in more than thirty countries during the decade and a half that began with the Portuguese coup of 1974. The democratic peace is the special peace that develops among liberal states "because they exercise democratic caution and are capable of appreciating the international rights of foreign republics."