Figure 4.18: FIGURE 4.18 PHOTO ESSAY: Power and Politics in EuropePatterns of political power and confl ict in Europe and in former European colonies generally indicate that countries with fewer political freedoms and lower levels of democratization also suffer the most from violent confl ict (see Figure 1.22 in Chapter 1 for more). Since World War II, the most violent confl icts in Europe have taken place in southern Central Europe, where repressive governments frequently denied their populations political freedoms. Outside Europe, many long and brutal wars were fought to gain independence from European colonial powers. In part, these wars stemmed from economic exploitation and the extraction of wealth and resources from the “colonies” by Europeans, but the denial of political freedoms to the local non-European population also was a major impetus for independence. The map shows how low levels of democratization persist in the countries that fought wars of independence, decades after the formal end of colonial rule. Other factors also worked against democratization, but European imperialism helped set many of these countries on an authoritarian trajectory that has only recently started to change.

[Source consulted: Democratization Index adapted from “The Democracy Index 2011: Democracy Under Stress,” Economist Intelligence Unit, at http://www.eiu.com/public/topical_report.aspx?campaignid=DemocracyIndex2011]