What makes democracies sustainable? And, in turn, what are the principal dangers facing new democracies? These are the questions that motivated our analyses. Our intent was to identify the principal political and economic choices confronting new democracies in the South and the East and to examine these alternatives in the light of our conception of sustainable democracy. While we have presented several proposals, concerning both institutional design and policy orientations, our purpose was not to offer blueprints, but only to emphasize that choices are inevitable and that alternatives are available.

What makes democracies sustainable, given the context of exogenous conditions, are their institutions and performance. Democracy is sustainable when its institutional framework promotes normatively desirable and politically desired objectives, such as freedom from arbitrary violence, material security, equality, or justice, and when, in turn, these institutions are adept at handling crises that arise when such objectives are not being fulfilled.

Institutions have two distinct effects: (1) There are sufficient grounds to believe that the specific institutional arrangements that make up a particular democratic system also affect its performance. Our knowledge of institutions is inadequate: normative arguments are inconclusive and the empirical knowledge of the effects of particular arrangements is limited. Yet the Churchillian view of democracy as the least evil is just not enough. Democracies are not all the same, and what they are matters for how they perform. (2) In turn, the effect of exogenous circumstances on the survival of democracies depends on their particular institutional arrangements.