Scott Mainwaring is Eugene and Helen Conley Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame and the coeditor (with Tarek Masoud) of Democracy in Hard Places (2022).
Reforming national intelligence communities is a critical, if often overlooked, task facing democratizing countries. Happily, intelligence agencies brought under civilian, democratic control may also becomes better at their core job…
In some countries, democratic competition is undermined less by electoral fraud or repression than by a skewed playing field—unequal access to state institutions, resources, and the media.
Evidence from social science and history suggests that China is entering a “transition zone” that will threaten its capacity to maintain both authoritarian rule and high levels of economic growth.
