Transition to Democracy in Post-Soviet States: Success or Failure. Case Study Analysis.

The democratization of Post-Soviet states in past two decades is the subject of this academic study. The main question of this research is that why most of the Post-Soviet states haven’t gone through successful transition to democracy. Five countries; Azerbaijan, Belorussia, Georgia, Lithuania and Uzbekistan are the casesof this study to analyze and evaluate as empirical part of this work. I haven’t chosen the countries that have standard and equal level of success or failure. For instance, Lithuania is among those countries that have gone through quite successful process of democratization, whereas others have similar or different problems hindering the full-fledged democratization across the Post-Soviet area. Insome other cases, such as in Georgia the transition has not been fully successful but some measures of democracy are considered to be existent in state institutions and society. Several hypotheses have been developed throughout this study all arguing the preconditions that lead to democratization, then these hypotheses are checked ifthey are applicable in the cases used in this study. The conclusion is that not all these hypotheses are correct in every single case and each case study has its own characteristic causes that lead to failure or success in transition to democracy.