The Fourth Reverse Wave?

This chapter examines the work of Samuel Huntington and his theory regarding waves of democratization. The chapter notes that the international community is witnessing a move away from the globalized world order that the era has facilitated (or de-globalization) and that de-democratization is seemingly occurring simultaneously. The chapter pays particular attention to the United States and actions that have been viewed as anti-democratic by the previous presidential administration, which has accelerated the global community's leeriness when it comes to international cooperation led by the U.S.

Democratic Backsliding or Stabilization?

There is a great deal of disagreement about the nature and extent of the alleged democratic backsliding. In order to understand the connection between the conflicting assessments of the democratization process and democracy indices (Freedom House, Polity, V-Dem, and Economist Intelligence Unit), this article investigates the various methods of measuring democracy. The question arises whether the studies outlining a process of democratic backsliding are backed by adequate data. The comparison of indices shows that the pessimistic authors are in minority. Although the conceptualization, coding and aggregation rules in the indices are not always applied perfectly, they determine the level of democracy accurately. This article also reveals that there is only a consensus on a first reverse wave of democratization. The second and third reverse waves cannot be distinguished based on the latest democracy data, so it is also possible to call these trends ‘periods of stabilization.’

Deconsolidation and de-democratisation: Current western Balkans experience of the transition

This article reviews the third decade of the post-Wall transition of central and eastern Europe, paying particular attention to the western Balkans. It focuses on European integration and the indicators of deconsolidation - notably, the lack of trust which has characterised the ‘crisis of confidence’ induced by the EU’s own series of crises since the middle of the 2000s. Additionally, the rise of authoritarianism and populism across the region is often viewed as a symptom of a possible ‘de-democratisation’, or reverse wave. From a process-oriented perspective, the author suggests a rethinking of the various polarisations under which, instead of seeing democratisation and de-democratisation as opposing forces, we may recognise instead that both are actually continuous, interconnected processes related to democracy itself - and not (at least, not necessarily) to a growing state of non-democracy. Oscillation between these two states may well characterise the next decade of the transition but, if we are to address the problems that this causes, we must first understand precisely how we have got where we are.

Viscoacoustic reverse time migration using a time-domain complex-valued wave equation

During seismic wave propagation, intrinsic attenuation inside the earth gives rise to amplitude loss and phase dispersion. Without appropriate correction strategies in migration, these effects degrade the amplitudes and resolution of migrated images. Based on a new time-domain viscoacoustic wave equation, we have developed a viscoacoustic reverse time migration (RTM) approach to correct attenuation-associated dispersion and dissipation effects. A time-reverse wave equation is derived to extrapolate the receiver wavefields, in which the sign of the dissipation term is reversed, whereas the dispersion term remains unchanged. The difference between the forward and time-reverse wave equations is consistent with the physical insights of attenuation compensation during wavefield backpropagation. Due to the introduction of an imaginary unit in the dispersion term, the forward and time-reverse wave equations are complex valued. They are similar to the time-dependent Schrödinger equation, whose real and imaginary parts are coupled during wavefield extrapolation. The analytic property of the extrapolated source and receiver wavefields allows us to explicitly separate up- and downgoing waves. A causal imaging condition is implemented by crosscorrelating downgoing source and upgoing receiver wavefields to remove low-wavenumber artifacts in migrated images. Numerical examples demonstrate that our viscoacoustic RTM approach is capable of producing subsurface reflectivity images with correct spatial locations as well as amplitudes.

Justice and Development Party’s Understanding of Democracy and Democratisation: Cultural Relativism and the Construction of the West as the ‘Other’

The perception of Turkey as a model of attractive country in the region has started to change in the recent years. In the first decade of the JDP rule Turkey was seen as an emerging power with its strong economy, improving democracy and inspiring foreign policy. However, the developments since the Arab Uprisings in the neighbourhood, Gezi movement at home, end of the Kurdish peace process, as well as coup attempt and subsequent de-democratisation harmed the soft power of Turkey. This study argues that the JDP’s understanding of democracy and democratisation has been full of flaws from the very beginning of its rule. The Turkish example shows that countries can experience subsequent processes of de-democratisation and de-democratisation if governing parties did not endogenise the basic norms of democracy. Therefore, it is argued that the reverse wave of de-democratisation characterises Turkey more than the “selective” processes of democratisation. It is also argued that JDP elite via its discourse has been constructing the West as the ‘Other’.