1975 Results
January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
How should we define the stages of democracy and their sequencing? Although some scholars argue that the rule of law should come first, today it should be viewed as the final piece of the liberal-democratic puzzle.
October 2012, Volume 23, Issue 4
Although active or retired military officers still hold top government posts, direct rule by the military as an institution is over, at least for now.
April 2012, Volume 23, Issue 2
Does recourse to the ballot box spur violence and instability in the world’s poorest countries? Despite the worries of modernization theorists such as Paul Collier, the evidence indicates that, over time, elections are not associated with higher levels of political violence.
April 2011, Volume 22, Issue 2
The past decade began at a high point for freedom but ended with freedom in peril. Yet the setbacks of the last five years do not outweigh the democratic gains of the last forty.
January 2011, Volume 22, Issue 1
Often thought of as a “nascent” democracy, Colombia actually has longstanding democratic institutions. In 2010, they were effective in determining who would succeed a highly popular, two-term president.
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Ghana held its fourth successful elections in late 2008 and subsequently witnessed the peaceful handover of power from ruling party to opposition. The country’s leaders must now reform its institutions of governance.
January 2007, Volume 18, Issue 1
Democracy is and always will be in some kind of crisis, for it is constantly redirecting its citizens’ gaze from a more or less unsatisfactory present toward a future of still unfulfilled possibilities.
October 2006, Volume 17, Issue 4
Latin America must find a way to include its newly urbanized informal workers in more regular channels of economic and political participation. Updating outmoded labor laws is a key to accomplishing this task.
July 2006, Volume 17, Issue 3
January’s remarkably free and fair parliamentary elections broke the PLO’s longstanding monopoly over Palestinian politics. Given Fatah’s disarray and the difficulties facing Hamas, there is now a window of opportunity for a third and avowedly liberal-democratic option to emerge.
January 2006, Volume 17, Issue 1
Independent central banks throughout the former Soviet Union suffer from a dual democratic deficit. How can they gain greater democratic legitimacy without compromising their countries' economic health?
April 2004, Volume 15, Issue 2
A through, deliberat, and consultative constitution-making process, which takes account of key lessons learned in other countries, will be essential to the legitimacy of a new Iraqi constitution and to the future of democracy.
October 2003, Volume 14, Issue 4
The EU was founded partly for the purpose of strengthening democracy, but it has been created in a way that is intrinsically not democratic.
July 2024, Volume 35, Issue 3
LGBT+ rights are under threat across the globe. Populist leaders stirring fear and animosity for political gain understand how democratic institutions can be harnessed and manipulated to curtail these rights, not enshrine them.
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 2015, Volume 26, Issue 4
Often called for but seldom defined with any precision, “non-Western democracy” could end up giving cover to authoritarianism, but also could allow potentially useful democratic innovations to be tried and tested.
January 2006, Volume 17, Issue 1
Excerpts from: the Damascus Declaration for Democratic National Change; the preamble of the Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation; the Taipei Declaration on Democracy in Asia.
The Russian system of personalized power is growing ever more dependent on the same strategies that proved useless in sustaining the USSR. While the system still has the potential to limp along, its survival tactics render the it progressively more dysfunctional. Among the circumstances weighing against the system’s survival are the unintended yet logical consequences…
July 1998, Volume 9, Issue 3
The death of Mexican poet and essayist Octavio Paz on April 20 was (in the words of Mexico’s president Ernesto Zedillo) “an irreplaceable loss for contemporary thought and culture—not just for Latin America but for the entire world.” Born in Mexico City on 31 March 1914, Paz published his first book of poetry while still…
July 2006, Volume 17, Issue 3
The desire for freedom and self-government is written in human hearts everywhere; in this there can be no "clash of civilizations." Claims that Islam is inherently hostile to democracy represent an unwarranted surrender to fundamentalist arguments; we should engage with a broad spectrum of Muslim groups, but without compromising our commitment to freedom and democracy.
October 2012, Volume 23, Issue 4
For the country to develop, it needs an informed and engaged citizenry that has the knowledge and freedom to question those in power.
