South Africa 1991-2000
- South Africa - First 20 Years of Democracy (1994 - 2014) South Africa’s advent to democracy was ushered through the 1993 Interim Constitution, drawn up through negotiations among various political parties, culminating in the country’s first non-racial election in 1994.
- Transition to Democracy Confronting Apartheid Leaders of the anti-apartheid struggle sought to create a government that reflected the country’s diversity, transforming a state long committed to white supremacy into what many began to describe as a “rainbow nation.”
- South Africa: Has democracy delivered? Although South Africa is in the throes of one of its worst political and economic crises since apartheid ended 20 years ago, the African National Congress (ANC) looks set to return to power after the 7 May elections.
United States 1848-2000
- History of democracy The Constitution of the United States of America, adopted in 1788, provides the world's first formal blueprint for a modern democracy. In the first flush of the new nation's enthusiasm, the compromises inherent in normal democracy are not required.
- The Real Birth of American Democracy The dawn of American democracy didn’t come in 1776, with the Declaration of Independence. It didn’t come in 1788, when the Constitution was ratified by the states, or in 1789, when George Washington took office. According to Harry Rubenstein, chair and curator of the Division of Political History at the American History Museum, the symbolic birth of our system of government didn’t come until its noble ideals were actually put to the test. On September 19, 215 years ago, Washington published his farewell address, marking one the first peaceful transfers of power in American history and cementing the country’s status as a stable, democratic state.
- United States profile - Timeline
A chronology of key events
Germany
- From Dictatorship to Democracy After World War II, West Germany rapidly made the transition from murderous dictatorship to model democracy. Or did it? New documents reveal just how many officials from the Nazi regime found new jobs in Bonn. A surprising number were chosen for senior government positions.
- The end of German democracy On the 30th of January 1933, the leader of the NSDAP, Adolf Hitler, was appointed Chancellor of the Reich by German President Paul von Hindenburg. Few people (including those who had allowed him and the NSDAP to come to power) realised that day to what barbarity the country might be led by its new leader.
- Germany's Failure at Establishing Democracy (1871-1945) The German nation state, which emerged under the leadership of Bismarck, had been set up with all the guises of a modern Western parliamentary state. The problems of the German democratic movement had been both cultural and state implemented.
