After years of increasingly authoritarian rule, Tanzanian president Samia Suluhu Hassan was hailed as a democratic reformer. But as Dan Paget and Aikande Clement Kwayu write in the July issue of the JoD, the president is more performer than reformer, relying on theatrics to delay real reform while sharpening her tools of repression.
Don’t miss your chance to read the Journal of Democracy’s July issue for free through the 31.
How resilient are democracies, really? While many countries have gone from democratic to authoritarian and back again, few have been able to sustain their recovery. The following essays offer strategies for defending and deepening democracy around the world.
Authoritarians can manipulate the law to rationalize their rule, but the law can equally serve to check authoritarian power. The Journal of Democracy essays below explore the dynamics between leaders and the law. Read for free now.
Syria is at a critical juncture. It’s up to the new government — and the people — to chart a more inclusive, transparent, and prosperous way forward. The Journal of Democracy essays below examine the challenges and opportunities Syria now faces.
Elections in nearly eighty countries around the world captured headlines throughout 2024. Meanwhile, NATO turned 75, Viktor Orbán ramped up his repression, and Bitcoin became the currency of choice for democracy activists under threat. These ten essays were the JoD’s most-read online exclusives of 2024.
The world’s biggest democracy and its brand of Hindu nationalism were top of mind for our readers in 2024. Meanwhile, this “year of elections” raised questions about liberalism, civic virtue, and democratic resilience across the world. The Journal of Democracy covered all of these ideas — plus the biggest stories of the year.
Donald Trump won a second — and, this time, overwhelming — victory on November 5. As the United States and the world take stock, the Journal of Democracy is looking back at 2016 and Trump’s unlikely rise to power.
Founded on 1 October 1949, the People’s Republic of China has entered a new age, as Xi centralizes power in his own hands and abandons the ideological openness of the reform era. Carl Minzner explains why China is entering a dangerous new chapter.
The 2024 International Day of Democracy is spotlighting the potential of artificial intelligence to improve governance while also recognizing the risks it poses. Over the last year, the Journal of Democracy has published some of the world’s leading AI experts on the promise and peril it presents for democracy.
The attack on Donald Trump is one of the worst instances of political violence in recent years. Such violence is the result of a moment in which people begin to see their political opponents as enemies instead of citizens of a different political stripe.
Even in an era haunted by democratic decline, Jason Brownlee and Kenny Miao find that wealthy democracies are unlikely to collapse in their contribution to the October 2022 Journal of Democracy. Six top experts in the field debate their conclusions.
Journal coeditors Will Dobson and Tarek Masoud joined former coeditor Larry Diamond for a conversation on the future of democracy. At the event, Diamond was awarded NED’s Democracy Service Medal.
May 18, 2022
In celebration of the Journal of Democracy‘s 30th anniversary issue, editors and contributors will gather on January 23 for reflections and discussion on authoritarianism and the global state of democracy.
January 23, 2020
ABOUT THE EVENT The reasons for the failure of democracy to take hold in Russia and for its current backsliding in Central Europe are complex, but one important and often neglected factor is what Ivan Krastev (in a July 2018 article in the Journal of Democracy) has called “Imitation and Its Discontents.” Following the collapse of communism, the…
November 5, 2018
ABOUT THE EVENT A populist and illiberal tide is gaining strength across the globe, posing a serious threat to liberal democracy. Prominent political scientists and commentators William A. Galston and Yascha Mounk discussed the factors fueling populism’s rise and how democracies can effectively respond. Both Galston and Mounk have written articles addressing these questions that appear in the April…
April 3, 2018
In many parts of the world, democracy seems to be under threat. Populism is on the rise, as is public dissatisfaction with such key features of liberal democracy as political parties, representative institutions, and minority rights. Even in the long-established democratic regimes of Western Europe and the United States, attachment to democracy is weakening, particularly…
January 10, 2017
