July 2021, Volume 32, Issue 3
How Authoritarians Inflate Their Image
Authoritarian propaganda and manipulation are leading democratic publics to see foreign autocracies as more powerful than they actually are.
3017 Results
July 2021, Volume 32, Issue 3
Authoritarian propaganda and manipulation are leading democratic publics to see foreign autocracies as more powerful than they actually are.
October 2018, Volume 29, Issue 4
Democracy is enduring in Latin America, but it cannot be said to be prospering. Illiberalism and polarization are rising. Yet core democratic institutions remain firmly in place, and therein lies hope.
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.
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
It is no easy feat to agree on how democratic backsliding should be measured. No surprise scholars are coming up with strikingly different results.
July 2022, Volume 33, Issue 3
The first two months of the war alone turned the Russian clock back decades, undoing thirty years of post-Soviet economic gains and reducing the country to an international pariah state.
Egypt’s upcoming presidential elections are a sham. But the opposition can still take advantage of this moment to push for genuine reforms that the country desperately needs.
October 2021, Volume 32, Issue 4
Unlike in the past, populism in Latin America today is driven mainly by the power of charismatic leaders—and it is eating away at the region’s already weak party system.
July 2019, Volume 30, Issue 3
The military-backed regime of President al-Sisi seems secure, but study of the Egyptian internet reveals that the regime has failed to win over the young.
October 2021, Volume 32, Issue 4
Mass uprisings toppled dictators in both Sudan and Algeria in 2019, but only Sudan was able to secure a transition to democracy due to important differences in their protest movements, militaries, and the role of the international community.
July 2025, Volume 36, Issue 3
As President Erdoğan’s grip on power is slipping, his regime is turning more repressive. But Turkey may still avoid becoming a full-blown autocracy. The opposition is increasingly popular, and there remains a way to tilt the playing field to their advantage.
July 2002, Volume 13, Issue 3
Middle Eastern autocracies rely ever more on repression of both their Islamist and secular critics, and therefore increasingly fear that any opening will be uncontrollable. Is there a way out?
In 2021, democracy’s fortunes were tested, and a tumultuous world became even more turbulent. Democratic setbacks arose in places as far flung as Burma, El Salvador, Tunisia, and Sudan, and a 20-year experiment in Afghanistan collapsed in days. The world’s democracies were beset by rising polarization, and people watched in shock as an insurrection took…
October 2000, Volume 11, Issue 4
Four excerpts from the Iranian press-on elections and democracy and on religious intolerance and intellectual pluralism-suggest the extent to which democratic thinking has gained a foothold in Iran.
October 2014, Volume 25, Issue 4
Indonesians came close to electing as their new president a populist challenger promising to restore the country’s predemocratic order. Democracy prevailed in the end, but its continued vulnerability was exposed.
July 2012, Volume 23, Issue 3
Although they have quieted down as quickly as they flared up, the clamorous protests that followed the dishonest Russian legislative elections in December 2011 have essentially destroyed Putin’s regime, the infamous “managed democracy.”
October 2017, Volume 28, Issue 4
Liberal democracy can never put down truly firm roots in Asia unless and until the fundamentals of democratic constitutionalism take hold. There are seven practical imperatives that friends of constitutionalism in the region must pursue.
The more determined democracies are to avoid war, the greater the risk that autocracies will wage it.
January 2023, Volume 34, Issue 1
The government of Giorgia Meloni, the country’s first female prime minister, is popular, scary, and competent. Her far-right party also enjoys greater democratic legitimacy than any other Italian party in a long time.
July 2021, Volume 32, Issue 3
With or without middleware, the basic challenge of responding to bad actors online remains.
Don’t miss these must-read essays from the latest issue of the Journal of Democracy, free for a limited time, on Venezuela, Georgia, Bangladesh, global support for democracy, and more.