Focusing in particular on the past decade, this enlightening volume explores the changing fortunes of democracy in the West, South East Asia and the Third World. It highlights the contrast between the expansion of democracy in quantitative terms, and the problems in maintaining or improving the quality of democracy. It examines such threats to democracy as public apathy, media trivialization, the power of big business and consumerism in the West, powerful states in South East Asia, and poverty and weak government in Africa, as well as the ubiquitous challenges of the global economy and the ''war on terrorism''. The author argues that a continued decline or stalling of democracy is not inevitable, but that it will require considerable human effort to claim or reclaim the political sphere.