July 2026, Volume 37, Issue 3
The U.S.-Israeli war in Iran has elevated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from the regime’s chief coercive tool to the regime itself. Expect an Iran that is more aggressive abroad and more repressive at home.
January 2026, Volume 37, Issue 1
Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan are embattled democracies shaped by historic traumas and facing dire threats from powers that deny their right to exist. Can democracy endure in such conditions?
October 2025, Volume 36, Issue 4
When Israel’s democratic safeguards came under attack, Israeli political scientists felt they had a duty to spread a shared, nonpartisan understanding of the dangers of democratic backsliding. Here is how they organized, built channels of communication, and reached the public.
July 2023, Volume 34, Issue 3
When Israel’s new government introduced proposals that threatened the judiciary’s independence, the country erupted in protest. These tensions will not soon end. Likud, once a center-right party, is now as populist as the European far right.
October 2001, Volume 12, Issue 4
Israel began directly electing its prime minister in 1992, only to abandon this change less than ten years later. What came between was a series of hard lessons in the unintended consequences or reform.
January 1993, Volume 4, Issue 1
Read the full essay here.
Extremist violence by Jewish Israelis in the West Bank is surging. But if you can’t articulate the threat you can’t combat it. Start with a basic principle: Name the ideology, not the demographic.
If democracy’s defenders want to push back against authoritarianism, they must learn to tap into patriotic language and a sense of national identity. Such emotional appeals shouldn’t be left to autocrats and demagogues.
Aspiring authoritarians share some common tactics for trying to dismantle a democracy. But recent cases also reveal lessons on how to defend against these attacks and slow the threat of democratic backsliding.
The country’s mass protests were its last democratic guardrail. But Israel’s wartime goals have become a higher priority than keeping Netanyahu in check.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants the public to see his efforts to overhaul the Israeli judiciary as a “reform.” But people have seen it for what it is: a struggle over the very future of democracy itself.
