Over the past 35 years, the number of democratic nations around the world has increased relentlessly. It all started in western Europe in the 1970s with the fall of authoritarian regimes in Greece, Spain and Portugal. The movement spread through east Asia and Latin America in the 1980s, with the coming of democracy to South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Brazil and Argentina. The fall of apartheid in South Africa in the 1990s was accompanied by the spread of electoral democracy in much of the African continent. The most dramatic breakthrough of all came with the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1989.
過去35年，世界各地民主國家的數量不斷增加。一切皆始于上世紀70年代的西歐，希臘、西班牙和葡萄牙的專制政權相繼倒臺。80年代，運動蔓延至東亞和拉丁美洲，韓國、臺灣、菲律賓、巴西和阿根廷迎來了民主。90年代，種族隔離制度在南非的終結，伴隨著選舉民主在非洲大陸大部分地區的傳播。最具戲劇性的突破來自1989年柏林墻的倒塌和前蘇聯帝國的解體。