1934 Results
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.
If mainstream parties don’t listen to voters, extremists will be rewarded at the ballot box.
People are calling for a so-called unity government to stem the violence in Mozambique. But there is a better way to set the country on the right course.
After losing a confidence vote and triggering snap elections, can Olaf Scholz lead mainstream parties back to power, or will more radical forces prevail?
Authoritarians are developing new tools to project their malign influence across the globe. The world of sports can teach us a lot about the games they play.
Voters across the world see democracy as unresponsive, out of touch, inept, and even corrupt. Something needs to change, but no one can agree on what. What democracy needs, Joel Day argues in a new Journal of Democracy online exclusive, is a single bold and effective reform plan.
In February, the West African country appeared to be on the cusp of chaos as its president tried to seize power for himself. How Senegal became one of 2024’s biggest democratic success stories.
With democracy in trouble across the globe, it’s easy to forget how and why a steady succession of dictatorships fell in the last half of the twentieth century. Democracy’s strengths, and its record, should give cause for hope at a moment when autocracy appears ascendent.
Why are would-be strongmen so unlikely to succeed in undoing democracy? What steps can we take to protect democracies from advanced AI? Should we be worried about the Gulf states’ growing influence?
Indonesian voters have made Prabowo Subianto, a special-forces commander with a dark past, their next president. Even as voters flocked to the polls, his election is a harbinger of democracy’s decline.
They are organized, nonviolent, and they have come out in great numbers. Guatemalans may also be writing the script on how to defeat democracy’s enemies.
The democratic icon’s path to prime minister has been tortuous and long. But is Malaysia’s pluralism slipping away precisely when Anwar is getting his shot to lead the nation?
The military has spent decades trying to impose order on Pakistani politics. It has led to chaos.
A few years ago Anura Kumara Dissanayake led a struggling political party with bleak prospects. Now he is Sri Lanka’s newly elected president. The hardest work may still lie ahead.
The Kremlin works hard to indoctrinate Russia’s youth to support Putin’s war in Ukraine. But a strong percentage support an immediate ceasefire and don’t think it’s a cause worth dying for.
It is almost a year since the death of Alexei Navalny. The Russian opposition leader sought to channel Russian nationalism as a challenge to Putin’s autocracy. He gave everything in the fight.
Aleksandar Vučić is tearing down what remains of Serbian democracy while the West remains silent. Serbia has become a test case for democratic resolve, and the region’s would-be strongmen are taking notice.
For years, they were a fringe vote. Now they are broadening their agenda, tapping into voter frustration, and getting Germans to favor them once again.
The small Latin American country was a brief democratic bright spot. But it appears to have fallen victim to a clash between populists and anti-populists, without a democrat in sight.
The West African democracy is one of the continent’s most enduring, but it shouldn’t be taken for granted. It’s a bulwark for democracy beyond its borders.
