3192 Results
October 2024, Volume 35, Issue 4
Political violence is rising in wealthy democracies. Polarized societies and bitter party politics are putting candidates and election officials in serious peril. Political leaders, more than anyone, have the power to stoke or stamp out this dangerous cycle of violence.
October 2024, Volume 35, Issue 4
Under Xi Jinping, the PRC has grown more assertive in the Global South. China aggressively targets country after country, often zeroing in on small but strategically significant states. But there are proven ways for even fragile democracies to resist Beijing’s influence.
July 2021, Volume 32, Issue 3
Once mostly found in authoritarian regimes, personalism is now putting established democracies in peril—a trend that digital technology will likely make worse.
January 2024, Volume 35, Issue 1
Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi’s letter from prison; Russian artist Sasha Skochilenko’s final court statement; the Bletchley Declaration on AI safety and ethics; “An Open Letter to the Presidents of Africa” by Congolese hip hop artist Martial Pa’nucci; a letter from Guatemala’s indigenous ancestral and community authorities; a Chinese blogger remembers Peng Lifa.
July 2024, Volume 35, Issue 3
There is a troubling tension around “people power” in Africa today: African social movements are among the most successful at ousting autocrats. But the continent’s entrenched antidemocratic institutions leave these victories highly vulnerable to reversal.
July 2024, Volume 35, Issue 3
If democracies did a better job “delivering” for their citizens, so the thinking goes, people would not be so ready to embrace antidemocratic alternatives. Not so. This conventional wisdom about democratic backsliding is seldom true and often not accurate at all.
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
Democracies are under stress, but they are not about to buckle. The erosion of norms and other woes do not spell democratic collapse. With incredibly few exceptions, affluent democracies will endure, no matter the schemes of would-be autocrats.
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
Analysis that subtly defines away problems is not going to help democracies survive the threats they now face. The fear is warranted.
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
It is no easy feat to agree on how democratic backsliding should be measured. No surprise scholars are coming up with strikingly different results.
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
Democratic death has been exaggerated. But fear that a democracy is going to break down may, ironically, be one of the things that protects it.
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
Democracies are increasingly under attack by the leaders they elect. We may not know the damage until it is too late.
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
We welcome the common ground. The challenge ahead is to protect democracies genuinely in peril, while not losing valuable time and resources chasing authoritarian ghosts.
July 2020, Volume 31, Issue 3
Although South Korea is praised for its success at fighting covid-19, the triumph came at a cost to rights and privacy, and is drawing attention away from a larger drift toward illiberalism and bitterly factionalized politics.
April 2023, Volume 34, Issue 2
The regime’s ill-fated policy to eliminate covid from China spurred the largest protests in a generation. It also made Xi Jinping’s challenge of maintaining authoritarian control over Chinese society even harder.
July 2012, Volume 23, Issue 3
Ghana has won praise for its steady progress toward democratic consolidation. In late 2010 it joined the ranks of the world’s oil producers. Will the democratic institutions be able to resist the “resource curse”?
January 2025, Volume 36, Issue 1
A review of The Troublemaker: How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong Kong’s Greatest Dissident, and China’s Most Feared Critic, by Mark L. Clifford.
January 2025, Volume 36, Issue 1
A Hong Kong prodemocracy activist’s statement upon her sentencing; Georgia’s president denounces the election results; Alaa Abd el-Fattah was named Writer of Courage and joint recipient of the 2024 PEN Pinter Prize; an open letter for Xu Zhiyong; and a Nigerian senator condemns the arrests of youth protesters.
January 2025, Volume 36, Issue 1
The 2024 election led to a dramatic changing of the guard, ushering in new political leaders and ousting dynastic elites. Can a new president correct the corruption and misgovernance of the past?
January 2025, Volume 36, Issue 1
The authors identify and respond to four broad themes in the Climate Crisis debate.
January 2025, Volume 36, Issue 1
The democracy versus “eco-authoritarianism” dilemma is false. The answer is more and better democracy.
