April 2021, Volume 32, Issue 2
With brutal resolve, the ruling party sought not merely to win an election, but to annihilate the opposition. Now, with President John Magufuli gone, that strategic rationale will likely only grow stronger.
April 2021, Volume 32, Issue 2
While many blamed President John Magufuli for throwing the country off its democratizing track, the truth is that the party that has ruled Tanzania for six decades has always been authoritarian.
April 2021, Volume 32, Issue 2
Longtime president Yoweri Museveni, his ruling party, and his increasingly militarized regime opened 2021 with a grossly unfair election. But time may be on the side of Uganda’s young voters and their hunger for change.
April 2021, Volume 32, Issue 2
Far from being a vulnerability in the struggle against terrorism, democratic freedoms are key to empowering moderate voices and depriving terrorists of popular support.
April 2021, Volume 32, Issue 2
Recent survey research suggests that most voters disapprove of antidemocratic acts by elected leaders. Yet there are critical exceptions when a significant minority of voters are sympathetic to or even supportive of violations of democratic laws and norms.
April 2021, Volume 32, Issue 2
The swelling pessimism about democracy’s future is unwarranted. Values focused on human freedom are spreading throughout the world, and suggest that the future of self-government is actually quite bright.
April 2021, Volume 32, Issue 2
Democracies rarely begin with a blank slate. Relics of authoritarian rule typically persist after democratic transitions, and these vestiges are not always harmful to people’s newfound freedom.
April 2021, Volume 32, Issue 2
The covid-19 pandemic nearly upended the U.S. election, but after a rocky primary season changes were made to save it. Alarmingly, however, a large portion of voters have rejected the result. The challenge of overcoming lies about a “rigged” election is great.
April 2021, Volume 32, Issue 2
A review of Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society, by Ronald J. Deibert.
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
The Editors’ introduction to “Mainstream Parties in Crisis.”
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
Around the world, polarizing political strategies are pushing societies into a vicious cycle of zero-sum politics and eroding democratic norms. If democracies are to escape this trap, wise choices and innovation by prodemocratic politicians will be needed.
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
Political polarization is not always bad for democracy. What is more, a tendency of major parties to converge into some kind of “grand coalition of the center” poses serious risks for a democratic system.
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
Faced with the rise of extreme and illiberal political players, mainstream parties have employed strategies of banning, marginalization, and cooptation. Yet to truly heal the underlying democratic ailment, establishment parties will need to look inward.
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
While analysts of populism have focused on economic woes and “cultural backlash,” a thirst for the restoration of order may better explain the appeal of authoritarian populists in fragile democracies where governance is falling short.
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
Like the “transition paradigm” before it, the concept of democratic backsliding threatens to flatten our perceptions of complex political realities. Examples from East-Central Europe illustrate the ambiguous dynamics at play in many troubled democracies.
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
The retirement of the country’s longest-serving prime minister leaves in place a “continuity administration,” and with it some troubling questions about whether liberal democracy’s “soft guardrails” are being eroded.
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
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 toward full despotism.
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
India’s Constitution has long seemed stable, but the rise of an ethnic, absolute, and opaque state is changing the constitutional order in momentous and disturbing ways.
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
The alleged tradeoff between economic development and political democracy-building is more fiction than fact. Indeed, progress toward fuller democratic governance can in fact enhance development.
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
A decade ago, Arab peoples stood up and sought to replace their rulers with a more democratic political project. But Arab autocrats have a project of their own. Can the people gain ground in the struggle for self-government, or will their rulers bear it away?
