On 4 October 1999 the Skytte Foundation at Uppsala University celebrated the fifth anniversary of the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science with a panel discussion on 'The Future of Democracy'. were the five prize winners so far: Robert Dahl (1995), Juan Linz (1996), Arend Lijphart (1997), Alexander George (1998) and Elinor Ostrom (1999). Scandinavian Political Studies has been given the opportunity to publish slightly edited versions of the introductory speeches.