Question

Why is the 20th century called a century of democracy?​

Answer 1

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Answer 2

During the 20th century the number of countries possessing the basic political institutions of representative democracy increased significantly. At the beginning of the 21st century, independent observers agreed that more than one-third of the world’s nominally independent countries possessed democratic institutions comparable to those of the English-speaking countries and the older democracies of continental Europe. In an additional one-sixth of the world’s countries, these institutions, though somewhat defective, nevertheless provided historically high levels of democratic government. Altogether, these democratic and near-democratic countries contained nearly half the world’s population. What accounted for this rapid expansion of democratic institutions?

Failures of nondemocratic systems

A significant part of the explanation is that all the main alternatives to democracy—whether of ancient or of modern origins—suffered political, economic, diplomatic, and military failures that greatly lessened their appeal. With the victory of the Allies in World War I, the ancient systems of monarchy, aristocracy, and oligarchy ceased to be legitimate. Following the military defeat of Italy and Germany in World War II, the newer alternative of fascism was likewise discredited, as was Soviet-style communism after the economic and political collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990–91. Similar failures contributed to the gradual disappearance of military dictatorships in Latin America in the 1980s and ’90s.

Market economies

Accompanying these ideological and institutional changes were changes in economic institutions. Highly centralized economies under state control had enabled political leaders to use their ready access to economic resources to reward their allies and punish their critics. As these systems were displaced by more decentralized market economies, the power and influence of top government officials declined. In addition, some of the conditions that were essential to the successful functioning of market economies also contributed to the development of democracy: ready access to reliable information, relatively high levels of education, ease of personal movement, and the rule of law. As market economies expanded and as middle classes grew larger and more influential, popular support for such conditions increased, often accompanied by demands for further democratization.