Focuses on the ways to evaluate and improve the quality of democratic regimes. This book attempts to elaborate and refine several themes of democratic quality: the rule of law, accountability, freedom, equality, and responsiveness. It features six comparative case studies, each of which applies these thematic elements to two neighboring countries.

The newest selection in this popular series focuses on the best ways to evaluate and improve the quality of new democratic regimes. The essays in the first part of the volume attempt to elaborate and refine several themes of democratic quality: the rule of law, accountability, freedom, equality, and responsiveness. The second part of the book features six comparative case studies, each of which applies these thematic elements to two neighboring countries: Brazil and Chile, South Africa and Ghana, Italy and Spain, Romania and Poland, India and Bangladesh, and Taiwan and Korea. Larry Diamond and Leonardo Morlino contribute an introduction, and Marc F. Plattner, an afterword.