For all the concern over authoritarianism’s advance, the competence of governance may be what determines the next chapter in the struggle between democracy and dictatorship.
About the Author
William J. Dobson is the Journal of Democracy’s coeditor and author of the book The Dictator’s Learning Curve: Inside the Global Battle for Democracy (2012).
The return to power, via elections, of the Rajapaksa family signals the consolidation of a Sinhalese Buddhist ethnocracy. But there are reasons to hope it will not take a turn…
In order to mark democracy’s progress and to inform policy, we need to be able to measure democracy in sufficient detail. The V-Dem Project aims to deliver exactly such a tool.
Liberty and self-government are not only good in themselves, but also have powerful and beneficial effects on a nation’s level of economic development and prosperity.
