3017 Results
July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3
Political elites once held referendums to fend off challenges to European integration. More recently, Euroskeptic parties have employed referendums to batter down the walls of elite consensus. But the spread of referendums threatens to undermine the legitimacy of representative democracy.
April 2001, Volume 12, Issue 2
A review of Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress, edited by Lawrence E. Harrison and Samuel P. Huntington.
January 2001, Volume 12, Issue 1
Although Africa is a latecomer to democratization, Africans overwhelmingly support democracy, and their conception of democracy is surprisingly liberal.
Samuel Huntington’s classic theory offered a new way of understanding democracy’s global trajectory. But amid rising populism and increasingly aggressive authoritarian leaders, has Huntington’s thesis outlived its usefulness?
October 2001, Volume 12, Issue 4
Direct democracy has come in for praise as being closer to the people’s will than representative democracy. A closer look at the sources of public support, however, reveals some surprises.
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 2023, Volume 34, Issue 1
Brazil’s charismatic former president is back, but there will be no honeymoon for the left. He won by a sliver, and his opponents on the right were empowered by the same election.
April 2022, Volume 33, Issue 2
The country’s opposition beat an authoritarian incumbent by unifying, organizing its supporters, and contesting every election no matter the odds. Can the strategy be applied elsewhere?
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
Future state-building missions must learn from the failure of past U.S. interventions: It is critical to work with local power-brokers rather than relying on a centralized state.
July 2015, Volume 26, Issue 3
In a surprising turn of events, opposition candidate Muhammadu Buhari was able to outpoll incumbent Goodluck Jonathan—and the latter peacefully acknowledged his defeat.
October 2004, Volume 15, Issue 4
Surveys show that Africans’ commitment to democracy fades over time, but also that their support can be refreshed by alternations in power via elections.
October 2012, Volume 23, Issue 4
Europe’s economic crisis has become a crisis of democratic governance that could roll back five decades of integration. The EU may disintegrate because its “commanders” are unable to converge three distinct economic, political and institutional theaters in which the crisis is being played out.
January 2008, Volume 19, Issue 1
Five years after the close of a horrifying civil war, Sierra Leone held the freest elections in its history. Voters turned out the party that had overseen the war's end, blaming it for having mishandled governance since then.
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
Much has been achieved both in the war against the Taliban and in the larger struggle to create a democratic Afghanistan, but dire problems remain.
April 2006, Volume 17, Issue 2
Despite hopes that 2005 would see an end to hostilities between rebels and government forces, neither disarmament nor elections took place. How did this once-prosperous country end up on the verge of anarchy and disaster?
July 2015, Volume 26, Issue 3
Rwanda under Paul Kagame has been hailed for its visionary leadership, economic progress, and reforms in education, health, and agriculture. Yet the regime’s autocratic rule, human-rights abuses, persecution of the Hutu majority, and growing inequality point to an ominous future.
As artificial intelligence continues to advance at breakneck speed and world powers vie against each other in the AI arms race, democracies are searching for ways to control a technology that is transforming our lives while threatening to break our democratic guardrails.
July 2018, Volume 29, Issue 3
Viewed until recently as an exemplar of democratic transformation, Poland is increasingly seen as a leading case of democratic backsliding, thanks to a series of illiberal measures pushed through by the Law and Justice party.
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Legislative elections in the Middle East often become contests over patronage and wind up reinforcing authoritarian regimes.
Winter 1990, Volume 1, Issue 1
Our goal at present is the thorough modernization of China. We all have a compelling sense of the need for this. There is a widespread feeling of dissatisfaction with the status quo among people in all walks of life.
