ABSTRACT
Many observers are too optimistic when they consider processes of political change; the outcome of such processes may not always be political development; it might as well be political decay, a point emphasized by Samuel Huntington (1968) more than forty years ago but often forgotten in recent deliberations. The end of the Cold War installed a profound optimism in many people; the emblematic formulation of liberal hopes was ‘the end of history’ thesis by Francis Fukuyama (1989). The liberal belief in rapid progress and fast transitions to liberal democracy in many countries of the world dominated the 1990s; this was a period of political transformations and humanitarian interventions, animated by the desire to bring the universal values of democracy and human rights to all people.
