The Authoritarian Origins of the Third Wave

Abstract: The "Third Wave of Democratization" (1974–1991) did not begin with a rising tide of liberal popular resistance, as the moniker implies. It began with the global exhaustion of large-scale right-wing authoritarian repression. The only worldwide regime wave of the mid-1970s was one of peasant-led communist revolutions against decaying right-wing dictatorships. This wave of peasant revolutions signaled a new era of steeply declining deadly repression in anticommunist dictatorships around the world. Liberal democracy was not suddenly cresting; right-wing authoritarianism was gradually crashing. This exhaustion of the global right-wing authoritarian project between the mid-1970s and late 1980s was later joined by a weakening stomach for repression in the Soviet bloc from the mid-1980s until the early 1990s. Focusing on global waves of authoritarian repression rather than democratic resistance permits a more accurate historical interpretation of the Third Wave, offering lessons for the disturbing resurgence in authoritarian energies around the world today.