January 2023, Volume 34, Issue 1
Lula’s Second Act
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.
1934 Results
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.
January 2023, Volume 34, Issue 1
After two votes and a yearlong drafting process, Chileans rejected the progressive charter they had claimed to want. Right-wing attacks and voter anxiety are to blame. But can Chileans get it right?
January 2023, Volume 34, Issue 1
This is the toughest time for Latin America’s democracies in decades. Democratic stagnation makes them ripe targets for illiberal populists and other would-be authoritarians who will feed the region’s worst vices.
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 2022, Volume 33, Issue 3
Why did Russia invade Ukraine? And why are Russian forces fighting so poorly? The internal logic of its personalist dictatorship is to blame.
July 2022, Volume 33, Issue 3
Xi Jinping undercut China’s political norms to cement his own power and brand of rule. But in so doing the “Chairman of Everything” has introduced new vulnerabilities for the regime.
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?
January 2022, Volume 33, Issue 1
The country’s armed forces opened the door to democracy, only to help slam it shut a decade later. A desire for prestige and political influence has turned them into an autocrat’s accomplice.
January 2022, Volume 33, Issue 1
China is expanding its global media footprint, aggressively peddling its preferred narratives and stifling criticism of its policies, all the while undermining free expression, public debate, and electoral integrity in more open societies.
January 2022, Volume 33, Issue 1
Information is being weaponized against democracy. Democratic societies need new ways to keep media free, accurate, and authentic.
January 2022, Volume 33, Issue 1
Christian Welzel’s case for a democratic future is based on the mistaken notion that opinion surveys can see the future. It is no more true today than it ever was.
October 2021, Volume 32, Issue 4
A weakened mandate from voters and perennial state dysfunction are putting Mexico’s populist president in a bind. Will he further damage democracy to fulfill his promises for change?
October 2021, Volume 32, Issue 4
Indonesia’s president claims he is curbing democracy today to save it later. If he is wrong about his long-term wager, democratic institutions may not survive.
July 2021, Volume 32, Issue 3
Instead of ending the instability that has seen the country have four presidents in three years, Peru’s presidential election has left the country on a razor-thin edge.
July 2021, Volume 32, Issue 3
To stop surveillance capitalism, take aim at the targeted advertising that fuels it.
July 2021, Volume 32, Issue 3
Chilean democracy has opted to throw off a constitution written by a dictator, and has chosen an assembly to craft a new one. Can Chile begin anew?
April 2021, Volume 32, Issue 2
The outsized power of large internet platforms to amplify or silence certain voices poses a grave threat to democracy. Finding a reliable way to dilute that power offers the best possible solution.
April 2021, Volume 32, Issue 2
Far from being a vulnerability in the struggle against terrorism, democratic freedoms are key to empowering moderate voices and depriving terrorists of popular support.
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
The return to power, via elections, of the Rajapaksa family signals the consolidation of a Sinhalese Buddhist ethnocracy. But there are reasons to hope it will not take a turn toward full despotism.
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
The alleged tradeoff between economic development and political democracy-building is more fiction than fact. Indeed, progress toward fuller democratic governance can in fact enhance development.