The twentieth century witnessed dramatic swings in regime change including the collapse of European democracies in the interwar period; the turn to military rule in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s; and the subsequent wave of democratization in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s in many parts of the world, with the striking exception of the Middle East. This course analyzes competing theoretical approaches to regime politics. Structural, agency, and cultural theories will be evaluated against processes of regime change in Western and Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Africa. The course ends with a discussion of the new democracies and the challenges that they face (i.e., economic reform, institutional design, transitional justice, and multiethnic populations).