The stunning outcome of the recent presidential election was more than a personal victory for DPP candidate Chen Shui-bian.

It was a victory for a party that had suffered and struggled since its birth in the 1980s (and even well before then) for democracy and human rights in Taiwan.

It was a victory for the cause of continuing democratic reform in Taiwan, for the quest to root out corruption and organized crime from the country's democratic politics.

The second presidential election campaign in Taiwan's young history as a democracy has entered its final week, providing a useful moment to ponder its larger meaning. This hard-fought election contest will determine more than simply which man and which (if any) party governs the country. It will also shape in important ways the future character and quality of democracy in the country.

Chen Shui-bian may not have much time to enjoy his historic presidential election victory. Very soon, he must begin pondering the very acute challenges of governance that await him. The president-elect has shown remarkable restraint and magnanimity on the cross-strait issue during the campaign and in the wake of his victory. All of those in Taiwan and internationally who have urged Chen to respect the status quo in cross-strait relations and the symbols of sovereignty have reason to be encouraged. Indeed, his repeated election-night reference to himself as the "tenth president of the Republic of China" shrewdly emphasized his determination to maintain continuity and avoid provocative words or acts.

North Korea is the world's last true Stalinist regime. In most of the world, communism is dead, at least in everything but name. But in North Korea, totalitarian controls and a bizarre ideology have survived the collapse of the Soviet Union, the global wave of democratization and liberalization, the political transformation of South Korea, and the death in 1994 of dictator Kim Il Sung. Like almost everything else about the country, its very name - the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" - is a grotesque, Orwellian lie.

In many countries in the developing and postcommunist worlds, corruption impedes economic growth, undermines investor confidence, and destabilizes government institutions. How then can a country move from a situation in which corruption is the norm to one in which corruption is morally intolerable - and rare?

Since April 1974, when the Portuguese military overthrew the Salazar/Caetano dictatorship, the number of democracies in the world has multiplied dramatically. Before the start of this global trend - what Samuel Huntington has famously dubbed the "third wave" of democratic expansion - there were about forty democracies. The number increased moderately through the late 1970s and early 1980s as several states experienced transitions from authoritarian rule (predominantly military) to democratic rule. In the mid-1980s, the pace of global democratic expansion accelerated markedly. By the end of 1995, there were as many as 117 democracies or as few as 76. The number depends on whether the standard is the more minimal electoral democracy (in which the people can choose their leaders through regular, free, and fair multiparty elections) or the more substantial liberal democracy (which secures individual liberties and civic pluralism through institutional checks and balances and a strong rule of law).

If the twentieth century was the century of totalitarianism, total war, genocide, and brutality, it was also the century of democracy. As Freedom House notes in its latest annual survey of freedom in the world, there was not a single country in 1900 that would qualify by today's standards as a democracy. By 1950, only 22 of the 80 sovereign political systems in the world (28 percent) were democratic. When the third wave of global democratization began in 1974, there were 39 democracies, but the percentage of democracies in the world was about the same (27 percent). Yet by January 2000, Freedom House counted 120 democracies, the highest number and the greatest percentage (63) in the history of the world.

From a humanitarian perspective, few international policy proposals appear more compelling than debt relief for the world's poor. The poorest countries have seen their external debts spiral to the point where interest payments are crowding out desperately needed investments in roads, schools, sanitation, health care, and other social services. The majority of their people live below the poverty line, struggling to survive on a dollar or two a day. Average life expectancy is well below 60 years and declining in many countries because of AIDS. Lacking access to safe drinking water, preventive medicine, and basic education, as well as to markets, credit, and justice, people live needlessly short and degrading lives.

Since Saddam Hussein's fall from power last April, the world has learned a great deal about the consequences of his abhorrent rule: mass killings, a brutalized population, staggering corruption, an impoverished population, a devastated environment, neglected educational institutions, a miscarried justice system, and other failing governmental functions. This legacy of Saddam's horrific misrule is the most dramatic demonstration of the vital connection between the vibrancy and economic development of a people and the nature of their governing institutions. The mounting evidence of this linkage around the world must drive a revolution in the way that we administer foreign assistance.