Page 135 - Comparing Political Communication Theories, Cases, and Challenge

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Global Political Communication

Good Governance, Human Development,
and Mass Communication

Pippa Norris

The growth in electoral democracies presents many potential opportu-
nities for human development. The last quarter of the twentieth cen-
tury witnessed a dramatic expansion in political rights and civil liberties
worldwide. Since the start of the “third wave” of democratization, in
1974, the proportion of states that are electoral democracies has more
than doubled, and the number of democratic governments in the world
1
has tripled (Diamond 2001). Countries as diverse as the Czech Repub-
lic, Mexico, and South Africa have experienced a radical transformation
of their political systems through the establishment of more effective
party competition, free and fair elections, and a more independent and
pluralistic press. Many hoped that these developments would expand
the voice of the disadvantaged and the accountability of governments,
so that policy makers would become more responsive to human needs,
and governments could be removed from power through the ballot box
if citizens became dissatisfied by their performance.
Yetinpractice, after the initial surge in the early 1990s, many electoral
democracies in Latin America, Central Europe, and Sub-Saharan Africa
remain fragile and only poorly consolidated, often divided by ethnic
conflict and plagued by a faltering economic performance, with excessive
executivepowerinthehandsofonepredominantpartyandafragmented
opposition (Linz and Stephan 1996). The central danger, illustrated by
thenationsoftheAndeanregion,liesindisillusionmentwithdemocracy,
and even occasional reversals (Norris 1999; Pharr and Putnam 2000;
Lagos2001;PlattnerandDiamond2001).Achievingtheirfulldemocratic
1 Freedom House estimates that in 2000–1 there were 120 electoral democracies around
the world, and the highest proportion of people (40.7 percent) living under free-
dom since the survey started in 1980. See Freedom Around the World, 2000–2001 at
www.freedomhouse.org.

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