3249 Results
January 2014, Volume 25, Issue 1
A year after the election that ended the rule of president Mikheil Saakashvili’s National Movement, Georgia has seen further remarkable developments that raise key questions for struggling postcommunist democracies and, indeed, democracies everywhere.
July 2007, Volume 18, Issue 3
The history of many of today’s established democracies shows that “out-of-sequence” democratization can lead to eventual success.
July 2006, Volume 17, Issue 3
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 of protecting free nations from deadly threats.
January 2017, Volume 28, Issue 1
Once Europe’s most painful “problem” area, the Balkans have managed to make strides toward stability, democracy, and integration into the West over the last fifteen or so years. But Moscow is becoming increasingly active in the region, and the durability of these gains should not be taken for granted.
January 2017, Volume 28, Issue 1
The September 2016 Legislative Council election marked the rise of a new political force that emphasizes the specific interests and identity of Hong Kong. It has especially been championed by many of the young people who swelled 2014’s Umbrella Movement protests.
July 2018, Volume 29, Issue 3
The political turmoil following a journalist’s murder in Slovakia has revealed serious dangers to the country’s democratic institutions.
October 2010, Volume 21, Issue 4
Since the return of multipartism in sub-Saharan Africa, open-seat elections have been the most likely to yield opposition victories, suggesting that term limits may significantly contribute to democratic consolidation.
April 2003, Volume 14, Issue 2
If they are to understand Islam authentically and to embrace the modern world freely, Muslims must take a new attitude toward their traditions of interpretation.
July 2023, Volume 34, Issue 3
Some autocracies are dominated by their militaries, while others hold the generals in check. The key is this: If an autocratic regime did not create its military, it will struggle to control it.
January 2009, Volume 20, Issue 1
Authoritarian weakness alone cannot explain why the mobilization process during the color revolutions assumed similar forms across varied contexts.
April 2003, Volume 14, Issue 2
The claim that ethnic minorities have a moral and legal right to secede from states is a dangerous fiction with perilous implications for divided societies.
October 2020, Volume 31, Issue 4
India’s covid-19 response has accelerated the country’s slide toward competitive authoritarian rule by centralizing decision making, undermining federalism, and providing new pretexts for stifling dissent.
October 2007, Volume 18, Issue 4
They are good signs for the future of democracy in Iran, but it will take time and energy to organize these promising pieces into a greater democracy movement.
July 2025, Volume 36, Issue 3
Authoritarian regimes are not lawless. Rather, autocrats take to the courtroom not only to enforce their will but to justify their rule. So how do they appeal to reason? How do they rationalize their undemocratic turn?
April 2023, Volume 34, Issue 2
Oppositions in monarchies don’t have to stage revolutions to win freedom: Monarchies are as compatible with democracy as they are with autocracy. The challenge for those who would remove a king is not to fall for the promises of reform that never come.
July 2010, Volume 21, Issue 3
Although many Iraqi parties continue to be organized along religious or ethnic lines, both the tone and the results of the 2010 parliamentary election campaign show that most Iraqi voters prefer a broader national agenda over narrow sectarian appeals.
July 2020, Volume 31, Issue 3
His regime has hung onto power despite setbacks that would have toppled most democratic governments. Besides pure repression, Maduro has developed new autocratic tools that have kept Venezuela’s authoritarian state afloat.
October 2024, Volume 35, Issue 4
Under Xi Jinping, the PRC has grown more assertive in the Global South. China aggressively targets country after country, often zeroing in on small but strategically significant states. But there are proven ways for even fragile democracies to resist Beijing’s influence.
January 2024, Volume 35, Issue 1
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.
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.
