Explaining and Modeling Democratic Transitions

The goal of this issue is to initiate the process of systematically formalizing the essential arguments on democratic transitions and testing their implications. A powerful way to organize and expand our knowledge mathematical modeling in this issue provides insights into the dynamics of the democratic transition process by revealing unexpected conditions and generating testable hypotheses. The empirically supported regularities can be then used to ease the transition from autocratic to democratic regimes increasing the well-being of the population and reducing the probability of international conflict and global war. (excerpt)