April 2004, Volume 15, Issue 2
Ousting the “Final 45”
A review of Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025 by Mark Palmer.
2982 Results
April 2004, Volume 15, Issue 2
A review of Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025 by Mark Palmer.
October 2010, Volume 21, Issue 4
May 2010, Benigno Aquino III bested a crowded field to win the presidency. The election, which was remarkably clean and orderly, gave a clear victory to the reformist narrative that has long vied with populism in the Philippines.
July 2023, Volume 34, Issue 3
When Israel’s new government introduced proposals that threatened the judiciary’s independence, the country erupted in protest. These tensions will not soon end. Likud, once a center-right party, is now as populist as the European far right.
Marine Le Pen has remade her image to obscure her far-right populism. There is a real risk French voters won’t see through it.
The country’s polls were marred by delayed results and charges of rigging. Worse, they might plunge Pakistan into an even deeper political crisis.
July 1996, Volume 7, Issue 3
Read the full essay here.
July 2025, Volume 36, Issue 3
Iran’s theocracy has waged a brutal campaign against its own citizens for years. Now that the Woman, Life, Freedom movement has stripped the regime of any legitimacy, the mullahs have had no response but to sharpen their instruments of repression.
Police in Manila arrested former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte on an ICC warrant for crimes against humanity. His daughter, Vice-President Sara Duterte, was impeached a month ago. The following Journal of Democracy essays chart the twists and turns of Philippine politics and the long-running feud between the Duterte and Marcos political clans.
January 2015, Volume 26, Issue 1
In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, democracy in the Arab world seems farther away today than at any point in the last 25 years. If it is to ever arrive, it will likely be through a more evolutionary and elite-driven process.
July 2014, Volume 25, Issue 3
Tiny countries have come in for praise as miniature models of democracy, but closer examination tells a mainly more somber tale.
These excerpts pertain to Rachid al-Ghannouchi and the challenge of blending Islam and democracy.
October 3, 2011
A Hong Kong court just handed out heavy sentences to 45 democracy activists. The pro-Beijing government is taking a hard line against anyone who would challenge it.
The Venezuelan dictator defied sanctions, international isolation, and massive protests. He appears to have a firmer footing than he’s had in years. Now what?
October 2019, Volume 30, Issue 4
The ruling BJP and the prime minister who leads it are now even stronger in the wake of their sweeping 2019 election victory. Voting puts the strength of Indian democracy on display, but the turn away from constitutional liberalism and toward Hindu majoritarianism is alarming.
July 2015, Volume 26, Issue 3
Rosy assumptions once held that the Internet would inevitably undermine unfree regimes. A look around the world today, however, indicates that something very different and far more disturbing is going on.
October 2014, Volume 25, Issue 4
Will the Modi government focus on the economy, or will it seek to implement a transformational Hindu-nationalist agenda?
January 2020, Volume 31, Issue 1
Anticorruption has become universally accepted as a norm; that may tell us something about why it struggles in practice.
January 2016, Volume 27, Issue 1
Across East-Central Europe, the political center ground has long been characterized by the uneasy cohabitation of liberal and illiberal norms, but the latter have been gradually overpowering the former.
January 2009, Volume 20, Issue 1
While the belief in democracy has spread around the world, it has begun to crumble in some of the West’s finest academic institutions.
October 2017, Volume 28, Issue 4
After a presidential corruption scandal sparked peaceful mass protests leading to the impeachment and removal of the incumbent, South Koreans went to the polls to choose her successor. Was this drama a window on the troubles of South Korean democracy, or a testament to its strength and resilience?