Democracy: Development and Ethnicity/Democratie : Developpement Et Ethnicite (Reports on Two Plenary Sessions at the Nineteenth Biennial Conference of the Canadian Ethnic Studies Association, Winnipeg, September 27-30, 2007/Rapports de Deux Sessions Plenieres a la Dix-Neuvieme Conference Bisannuelle de la Societe Canadienne D'etudes Ethniques, Winnipeg, 27-30 Septembre 2007‪)‬

Let me begin with a brief comment about the history of democracies, their sustainability, and the drivers of their existence. Then I shall comment on some of the questions posed to the panel. I will end with some commentary about the role of social sciences in the development of democracies and the role that government and agencies such as the World Bank play in the process. For me it seems like yesterday, but for many of you, it is so old you can't even remember it. However, it was early in 1974 that the stunning wave of the new democratic expansion in the world began. It was then that Portugal became a democracy. At that time, there were only forty democracies in the world, and they were mainly in the advanced industrial countries (Diamond 2003). There were a few other democracies scattered around the world, e.g., India, Sri Lanka, Costa Rica, Venezuela --but only a few.