What is democracy? What factors explain its historical trajectory? Have existing democracies realized their promise? This course analyzes the origins of democracy, the development of modern representative democracy, fascism, and socialism in the 18th to the 20th centuries. It also considers forms of democracy in postcolonial Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The course examines the quality of modern democratic regimes in relation to such things as participation, gender equality, and cultural recognition of citizens. (Theory)