The topic of the book is the third wave of democratization: Authoritarian regimes on earth
around 1975 mostly gave way to democratic regimes by 2000. How did it happen? Why did
democracies massively emerge even in the poorest countries where democracy was least expected?
Why did global democracy increase in number but decline in quality? I inquire what factors
promoted the third wave in what manners.To answer the question I employ a mixed-methods
approach taking a sequential design of quantitative-to-qualitative methods. Event history
analysis is conducted to test the factors of democratic transitions. Alternative theories are
proposed based on the results and further tested through comparative historical analysis of
South Korea and Nigeria. Employing elite conflict framework those proposed theories focus on
ruling elite's roles in promoting democratic transition. Importantly democratic transition in
the third wave rarely meant realizing true democracy but usually meant ruler's adopting
multi-party election to claim democracy. The latter is defined as nominal democratization
