October 2015, Volume 26, Issue 4
After the Arab Spring: How the Media Trashed the Transitions
The Arab experience shows that the same media that facilitate the toppling of dictators can make it harder to build democracy.
653 Results
October 2015, Volume 26, Issue 4
The Arab experience shows that the same media that facilitate the toppling of dictators can make it harder to build democracy.
April 2024, Volume 35, Issue 2
The battle over rights for sexual minorities has divided countries into opposing camps. But autocrats are lashing out with one aim: countering the liberal international order.
April 2024, Volume 35, Issue 2
Violence need not be lethal to pose a threat to democracy. Indeed, low-scale violence has proven to be a far more effective means of manipulating elections.
July 2023, Volume 34, Issue 3
India has a long history of elites acting undemocratically. But the current government’s attacks on the media, arrests of opposition, and discriminatory laws are deeper and more alarming.
January 2022, Volume 33, Issue 1
The “democratic deconsolidation” thesis is overblown. Emancipative values continue to spread worldwide, and clearly point to brighter democratic days ahead.
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 2019, Volume 30, Issue 1
Zimbabwe’s first elections since the November 2017 coup that ousted nonagenarian dictator Robert Mugabe were marred by the abuse of state resources, electoral irregularities, and a tragic bout of postelection violence that saw soldiers use deadly force against civilians.
April 2018, Volume 29, Issue 2
Through its “16+1” initiative, China is building relationships with postcommunist Europe that could threaten to undermine the European Union.
April 2018, Volume 29, Issue 2
Sophisticated technology could not keep Kenya’s August 2017 presidential election from leading to renewed ethnic tensions and a painful standoff from which the country appears only now to be emerging. What went wrong?
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
The worldwide popularity of runoff rules for presidential elections has grown strikingly in recent decades. In Latin America, contrary to scholarly expectations, this shift has had important benefits for democracy.
October 2016, Volume 27, Issue 4
Duterte promised voters that he would swiftly reduce crime and poverty and enact constitutional change. But will he violate democratic norms and rule of law in the process?
July 2013, Volume 24, Issue 3
Today’s Russian protest movement in many ways resembles past civil-rights and civil-resistance efforts in other parts of the world, from its commitment to nonviolence to its key demands—a vote that counts and equality under the law. Listen to the podcast.
April 2013, Volume 24, Issue 2
A particular pattern of institutional change—“serial replacement”—is dominant in Latin America and other developing countries with weak institutional contexts. This pattern is characterized by institutional change that is both frequent and radical.
April 2013, Volume 24, Issue 2
Should Brussels intervene to protect democracy within EU member states? Does Europe have the tools it would need to do so effectively? Recent developments in Hungary and Romania show the importance of addressing these questions sooner rather than later.
October 2012, Volume 23, Issue 4
The present crisis of the Euro is a near perfect example of how causal complexity, unanticipated consequences, and decisional uncertainty can have a significant and cumulative impact on regional integration. In theory, this should be the crisis that will drive the EU from economic to political integration. In practice, the outcome—at least, so far—has been…
October 2011, Volume 22, Issue 4
Since its transition to democracy barely a decade ago, Indonesia has begun projecting its newly democratic values across international borders. So far, however, its efforts have been largely rhetorical.
April 2010, Volume 21, Issue 2
Strange and unsettling turns of events further roiled the already-troubled waters of Guatemalan political life in 2009, driving the crime-ridden country’s shaky democracy to the brink.
January 2010, Volume 21, Issue 1
In some countries, democratic competition is undermined less by electoral fraud or repression than by a skewed playing field—unequal access to state institutions, resources, and the media.
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
Do young democracies have to "deliver the goods" economically in order to win political legitimacy in their citizens' eyes? Public opinion data from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Arab world suggest some fascinating answers.
January 2008, Volume 19, Issue 1
Attitudes toward democracy in Latin America vary from country to country, and within countries between left and right. Public opinion is strongly affected by the success or failure of political leaders in delivering social and economic change.