The Third Wave in the Soviet Union

Abstract

Samuel Huntington's 1991 publication "The Third Wave" explored and sought to explain a string of movements toward democracy throughout the world. With the Soviet Union's collapse in chronological proximity and the ensuing establishment of new governments throughout its member states, this paper applied some of Huntington's principles of democratization to this 15-state sample.The two specific variables explored were economic development and religion. While Huntington had proposed GNP per capita as the primary determining variable with regards to economy, it was found instead that economic development could be better indicated by reliance on service as opposed to industrial sectors, and that such was a greater determinant for democracy. As regards religion, while Huntington had noted a cleavage between the Christian West and the rest of the world, in the case of post-Soviet republics, it appears that has far more to do with state capture and control of religion prior to communism's collapse, as opposed to specific "cultural" inhibitors to democratic growth. Such augmentations of Huntington's claims call into question whether the Soviet Union's collapse would constitute a third wave phenomenon.