An audacious new explanation for the emergence of political pluralism in weak states.

Pluralism by Default explores sources of political contestation in the former Soviet Union and beyond. Lucan Way proposes that pluralism in "new democracies" is often grounded less in democratic leadership or emerging civil society and more in the failure of authoritarianism. Dynamic competition frequently emerges because autocrats lack the state capacity to steal elections, impose censorship, or repress opposition. In fact, the same institutional failures that facilitate political competition may also thwart the development of stable democracy.

Lucan Way is an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto. He is the coauthor of Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War.

Lucan Way's profile page

"[Way] challenges the strong and persistent tendency in the literature to look for causes of political pluralism in robust institutions, emerging civil society, or the victory of a democratic culture...Highly recommended [for] lower-division undergraduates through faculty."

"That Way’s argument still has the power to act as a corrective—even after the wave of literature following what Thomas Carothers called the ‘end of the transition paradigm’—speaks both to the quality of the book, as well as to the apparent perennial urge (which the book critiques) to interpret moments of political competition as intimations of democratisation."