INTRODUCTION

We live in a time when the call for freedom and democracy echoes across the globe. Eastern Europe has cast off the totalitarian governments of almost half a century, and the republics of the former Soviet Union are struggling to replace the Communist regime of almost 75 years with a new democratic order, something they could never before experience. But the drama surrounding the extraordinary political changes in Europe obscures the remarkable degree to which the promise of democracy has mobilized peoples throughout the world. North and South America are now virtually a hemisphere of democracy; Africa is experiencing an unprecedented era of democratic reform; and new, dynamic democracies have taken root in Asia.