近年来，民主政治以惊人的速度扩展到亚洲、非洲和拉丁美洲的许多国家。是什么原因引起了这些戏剧性政治变迁？第三世界民主化的国家面临怎样的挑战？这些新民主会继续下去吗？我们将利用电影、小说、大众新闻以及学术研究等方式研究这些问题。我们也将关注少数几个国家（巴西、印度、墨西哥、尼日利亚、塞内加尔、新加坡和斯里兰卡）以便更深入地探索发展中国家所面临的一些最重要的政治挑战。尽管本课程集中关注发展中国家，许多课时仍将“漫游”到其他地区的民主化国家。

Recent years have seen an astonishing spread of democracy to many African, Asian, and Latin American countries. What caused these dramatic political transitions? What challenges do democratizing countries in the Third World face? Will these new democracies endure? We will take up these questions using film, fiction, and popular journalism, as well as scholarly research. We will also focus on a small number of countries (Brazil, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Senegal, Singapore, and Sri Lanka) in order to explore in greater depth some of the most important political challenges faced by developing countries. Although the class focuses on the developing world, many of the lessons should "travel" to democratizing countries in other regions.