July 2014, Volume 25, Issue 3
Is Small Really Beautiful? The Microstate Mistake
Tiny countries have come in for praise as miniature models of democracy, but closer examination tells a mainly more somber tale.
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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.
July 1996, Volume 7, Issue 3
Read the full essay here.
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?
April 2017, Volume 28, Issue 2
Populist nationalism is emerging as the main competitor to liberal democracy. But despite its current resurgence, in the long run, like other illiberal paths to modernity, it is likely to prove a dead end.
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
After a nearly two-year interlude of authoritarian rule, Bangladeshis voted decisively for democracy, a secular approach to politics, and the center-left. The challenge now is to show that parliamentary democracy can deliver stability and socioeconomic progress.
October 2025, Volume 36, Issue 4
The Chinese Communist Party is dreaming an authoritarian techno-dream that is a democrat’s nightmare: ever more fine-grained state control made possible by using AI networks to pry and spy everywhere. But human unpredictability remains a force the party-state cannot tame.
October 2008, Volume 19, Issue 4
The military regime opened up the media sector to more competition and private broadcasters in 2002, and the ramifications turned out to be vast.
Venezuela’s opposition defeated Nicolás Maduro in the country’s July presidential election, but the Venezuelan strongman refuses to relinquish power. The Journal of Democracy essays below, free for a limited time, chronicle Venezuela’s struggle against Maduro’s authoritarianism — and what makes this election different.
January 2019, Volume 30, Issue 1
In the world’s largest democracy, liberalism is in retreat, as evidenced by a pattern of assaults on minorities, press freedom, and the independence of key cultural and intellectual institutions.
January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
A 2011 power struggle spawned a crisis that marred Papua New Guinea’s unbroken record of democratic rule. Has the country found its way back?
January 2007, Volume 18, Issue 1
When Abdullah Ahmad Badawi succeeded Mahathir Mohamad as prime minister in 2003, many expected far-reaching change in Malaysia. So far, however, turnover at the top has not led to significant democratic progress.
The last Soviet leader brought down his regime and ended the Cold War. The free world owes him a debt of gratitude.
January 2020, Volume 31, Issue 1
There is still an opportunity to pull the world out of its democratic slump. What is most needed is democratic conviction and resolve.