Worldwide more electoral democracies exist today than at any time in history. Almost half of all governments can be considered democratic, according to one of the most widely used comparisons developed by Freedom House. Nevertheless most of the surge in democratization occurred during the late-1980s and early-1990s, following the fall of the Berlin wall. During the early twenty-first century, global progress has stagnated and there are also signs of an incipient backlash in some parts of the world, threatening fragile gains. It is therefore time to look anew at the capacity of institutional reforms to facilitate sustainable democratic regimes and to generate lasting peace settlements in multiethnic states, especially those emerging from deep-rooted civil wars.

Social scientists and policymakers remain divided about whether constitutional reforms designed to share power can reduce political instability in states experiencing internal conflict, or whether these arrangements may prove counterproductive by unintentionally reinforcing ethnic hatred or even fueling a strong resurgence of intercommunal violence. Despite decades of heated debate, this issue remains unresolved. Cases of both apparent success and failure of power-sharing institutions can be quoted by proponents on both sides. To look afresh at these issues, this book uses global comparisons from 1972 to 2004 and 10 selected case studies to reexamine classic questions about the potential impact of political institutions in fostering sustainable democracy.