October 2025, Volume 36, Issue 4
Evo Morales’s Movement Toward Socialism transformed Bolivian politics. But after almost two decades in power, the party is unraveling. No longer the country’s anchor, the MAS has become a major driver of instability and political decay.
October 2025, Volume 36, Issue 4
Latin America remains haunted by the specter of “strongman” rule. Term limits have been a way of guarding against this threat, but aspiring autocrats have now found a new avenue to bypass this barrier to power: courts of law.
October 2025, Volume 36, Issue 4
Conventional wisdom says that, once in power, opposition parties will return backsliding countries to the democratic path. In reality, not only is this not true, but it is not uncommon for the opposition to adopt the autocratic habits of the regime they replaced.
October 2025, Volume 36, Issue 4
After a turbulent election cycle, with an incumbent leader postponing the vote and putting his thumb on the scale, voters elected a new president and, for the third time in Senegalese history, a new ruling party. How did the country keep its democracy from crumbling?
Why Bolivia Voted for Change—And Continuity | Ximena Velasco-Guachalla and Callan Hummel
The election of Rodrigo Paz Pereira as Bolivia’s new president signals the end of the MAS era. But it is more than an end to Evo Morales’s leftist party. It showcases how Indigenous political power has transformed the country’s political landscape.
How Venezuela Became a Gangster State | Juan Miguel Matheus
Nicolás Maduro is a mafia boss, not a president, and the Venezuelan government is now a criminal enterprise with the power of a state. It poses a threat to democracies everywhere.
Why South Asia’s Regimes Keep Falling | Paul Staniland
The government of Nepal has become the third South Asian government to collapse amid mass protests in three years. It will take more than elections to restore stability. Young protesters want to see real change.
News & Updates
October 2025
When democracies are clearly outperforming autocracies in so many ways, why the widespread disenchantment with democratic government? Why are democracy and human-rights activists across the globe turning to Bitcoin? And what’s behind autocratic leaders increasingly attacking and repressing citizens outside their borders? The latest issue of the Journal of Democracy features insights on these questions,…
October 2025
In Bolivia’s presidential runoff on Sunday, center-right senator Rodrigo Paz Pereira defeated right-wing former interim president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga.
Most Read
Political violence is rising in wealthy democracies. Polarized societies and bitter party politics are putting candidates and election officials in serious peril. Political leaders, more than anyone, have the power to stoke or stamp out this dangerous cycle of violence.
Forget his excuses. Russia’s autocrat doesn’t worry about NATO. What terrifies him is the prospect of a flourishing Ukrainian democracy.
Old-fashioned military coups and blatant election-day fraud are becoming mercifully rarer these days, but other, subtler forms of democratic regression are a growing problem that demands more attention.
If democracies did a better job “delivering” for their citizens, so the thinking goes, people would not be so ready to embrace antidemocratic alternatives. Not so. This conventional wisdom about democratic backsliding is seldom true and often not accurate at…
Generative AI can flood the media, internet, and even personal correspondence, sowing confusion for voters and government officials alike. If we fail to act, mounting mistrust will polarize our societies and tear at our institutions.
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By Kurt Weyland
Populism is a mortal threat to liberal democracy, but it rarely hits the mark. The evidence shows that these would-be strongmen require an extraordinary set of circumstances to succeed, which is why they so rarely do.
Plus the entire January 2024 issue, available free of charge for a limited time.
