October 2004, Volume 15, Issue 4
The Quality of Democracy: A Skeptical Afterword
Asking what makes a good democracy is a noble and sensible enterprise, but it will always point beyond the borders of empirical political science.
3226 Results
October 2004, Volume 15, Issue 4
Asking what makes a good democracy is a noble and sensible enterprise, but it will always point beyond the borders of empirical political science.
July 2004, Volume 15, Issue 3
Confucianism has had a long history of involvement with the state in East Asia, but today there are reasons to think that it can become a positive force in encouraging democracy.
July 2003, Volume 14, Issue 3
Almost a half-century after being forced from their homeland, Tibetans abroad, led by the Dalai Lama, have democratized their institutions in hopes that they may one day form the basis for a free and self-governing Tibet.
July 2019, Volume 30, Issue 3
Within Ukraine, Russia’s 2014 invasion has generated unprecedented pressures to impose restrictions on speech. While international norms allow some censorship during wartime, some of Ukraine’s new media and cultural policies raise risks not only for its democracy, but for its security as well.
July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3
Read the full essay here. The relationship between democracy and civil society is not straightforward. Angry crowds can stymie the functioning of the democratic process, institutions, and governance. Drawing on recent Indian examples, this article sets out a typology of civil society movements in order to assess their impact on Indian democracy. It shows how…
October 2016, Volume 27, Issue 4
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.
July 2011, Volume 22, Issue 3
Despite signs of a cautious willingness to allow more political competition, the regime of newly reelected president Yoweri Museveni fell back on familiar habits of brutal repression when public unrest followed a sudden spike in the cost of living.
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Read the full essay here. Online activism is an integral part of the broader landscape of citizen activism in contemporary China. It assumes a variety of forms, from cultural and social activism to cyber-nationalism and online petitions and protests. Technological development and social transformation provide the basic structural conditions. A fledgling civil society of online…
July 2007, Volume 18, Issue 3
Sub-Saharan Africa has been traditionally depicted as a place where formal institutional rules are largely irrelevant-yet in the past fifteen years these rules have come to matter, and this trend is unlikely to reverse.
July 2010, Volume 21, Issue 3
Democratization is never easy, smooth, or linear, but as Indonesia’s experience in building a multiparty and multiethnic democracy shows, it can succeed even under difficult and initially unpromising conditions.
April 2005, Volume 16, Issue 2
A review of The Democratic Advantage: How Democracies Promote Prosperity and Peace by Morton H. Halperin, Joseph T. Siegle, and Michael M. Weinstein.
July 2003, Volume 14, Issue 3
Democratic and ecnomic development will become sustainable in sub-Saharan Africa only with the emergence of coherent, legitimate and effective states.
July 1994, Volume 5, Issue 3
A review of The Idea of Civil Society, by Adam B. Seligman and Civil Society and Political Theory, by Jean L. Cohen and Andrew Arato.
July 1992, Volume 3, Issue 3
A review of Democracy and Discontent: India’s Growing Crisis of Governability, by Atul Kohli and The Politics of India Since Independence, by Paul Brass.
April 2000, Volume 11, Issue 2
The most striking thing about Fernando de la Rua’s presidential victory in Argentina was the routine-even boring-character of the elections. This turn toward normalization is a major break with the past.
January 2016, Volume 27, Issue 1
Although the leading authoritarian regimes are today integrated in many ways into the global system, they have not become more like the democracies; instead, they have been devising policies and practices aimed at blocking democracy’s advance.
October 2005, Volume 16, Issue 4
Nepal’s people find themselves caught in an ugly struggle between two antidemocratic ideologies—royal absolutism and Maoism. What happened?
October 2023, Volume 34, Issue 4
Almost no one expected a little-known candidate to defeat the ruling antidemocratic regime at the ballot box. But the Guatemalan opposition, backed by the international community, exploited the criminal oligarchy’s fissures to halt the country’s authoritarian slide.
January 2015, Volume 26, Issue 1
From small beginnings, democracy aid has become a sizeable enterprise. Today it is beset by problems, however, as it must operate in a less friendly environment. Hard decisions will need to be made to maintain its relevance.
October 2015, Volume 26, Issue 4
East European communists inherited the Bolshevik obsession with repressing any genuinely independent civil society groups.