Last week, a Bangladeshi court convicted deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina of crimes against humanity and sentenced her to death. Hasina, now exiled in India, was ousted by a student uprising in August 2024 after unleashing a vicious crackdown on protesters, killing more than a thousand.
Gulf monarchies are exerting influence all over the world — in sports, media, entertainment, and politics. Where their human-rights records once drew censure, these oil-rich kingdoms are now being courted and their leaders welcomed in Western halls of power. How have these countries remained bastions of repression while white-washing their reputations? The following Journal of Democracy essays…
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On Sunday, Hondurans voted for their next president and vice-president, members of Congress, and municipal mayors. But the country’s vote-tally system failed.
“As U.S. military assets accumulate in the Caribbean and diplomatic pressure on the Nicolás Maduro regime intensifies,” writes José Ramón Morales-Arilla in a new Journal of Democracy online exclusive, “two starkly different visions of Venezuela’s future dominate policy discussions.”
On 8 December 2024, a coalition of Islamic militants toppled the brutal Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, whose family had ruled the country for more than half a century.
Tanzania’s Independence Day was Tuesday, barely a month since the shocking and brutal crackdown on thousands of protesters decrying the country’s sham election.
Tanzania’s October election was a sham. When people rose up in protest, the regime responded with a brutal crackdown. That reign of terror marks a turning point for the country, and there is no going back.
Days after the election and no one knows who the next president will be. Even worse, none of the likely winners offer much hope for the country’s democracy.
The South American country may be on the verge of real change. But it isn’t going to descend into civil-war chaos like Libya. It will be difficult, imperfect, and far better than what Venezuelans have had to endure.
Last month Rio’s police conducted the deadliest police operation in Brazil’s history, killing 117 people. It is one episode in a long history of state violence. Not only are such iron-fisted methods ineffective, they pose a danger for democracy itself.
Faith in democracy is fading, as citizens increasingly find self-rule slow, tired, and opaque. It’s time for democratic institutions to lean into the tech revolution. Digital governance isn’t a gadget; it’s democracy’s lifeline.
Autocrats around the world have been innovating new ways to steal elections, manipulating rules and revising laws to keep themselves in power for as long as possible.
Nicolás Maduro’s regime has long relied on support from China, Cuba, Russia, and other authoritarians to stay afloat. But now that the United States is stepping up the pressure, will his fellow autocrats leave him high and dry?
Why are would-be strongmen so unlikely to succeed in undoing democracy? What steps can we take to protect democracies from advanced AI? Should we be worried about the Gulf states’ growing influence?
Cameroonians just reelected the 92-year-old Paul Biya in an election that voters rightly view with suspicion. The tensions under the surface don’t bode well for the country or its people.
With democracy in trouble across the globe, it’s easy to forget how and why a steady succession of dictatorships fell in the last half of the twentieth century. Democracy’s strengths, and its record, should give cause for hope at a moment when autocracy appears ascendent.
Last week, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to adopt a resolution condemning the United States’ “commercial and financial embargo” against Cuba. The outcome came as no surprise.
President Hassan promised Tanzanians freedom, transparency, and reform. Instead, she has delivered repression, violence, and arrests as she bars anyone who dares challenge her.
When María Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this month, she made sure to emphasize that her accomplishments were not hers alone — they were shared with countless other activists agitating for democracy in Venezuela.
