3257 Results
April 2014, Volume 25, Issue 2
Civil-liberties scores have notably declined over the past several years, while political-rights scores have slightly improved—perhaps because modern authoritarians have begun to adopt subtler means of repression. Overall, however, freedom experienced a global decline for the eighth straight year in 2013.
April 2014, Volume 25, Issue 2
Home to about a quarter of the world’s people, South Asia presents a murky and not very encouraging picture when it comes to democracy.
April 2014, Volume 25, Issue 2
Long prone to coups, Pakistan now for the first time has seen a freely elected government duly serve out its full term and peacefully hand the reins of power to another.
April 2014, Volume 25, Issue 2
After two decades of elections that produced a number of alternations in power, an impasse over “caretaker government” crippled the 2014 contest and has made single-party rule all too real a prospect.
April 2014, Volume 25, Issue 2
After a decade of upheavals, Nepal elected in November 2013 its Second Constituent Assembly, but it is still unclear whether elites will accept reforms that empower wider sections of society.
April 2014, Volume 25, Issue 2
With the defeat of the Tamil Tigers in a 26-year civil war, Sri Lanka had a chance for genuine reconciliation, but that chance is being squandered by the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
April 2014, Volume 25, Issue 2
An opposition victory in this Himalayan kingdom’s second elections in 2013 showed that surprises are possible even in a democratic transition that has been guided from above by the monarchy.
April 2014, Volume 25, Issue 2
After a brief era of political opening, the authoritarian old guard has ridden a dubiously conducted presidential election back into power.
January 2014, Volume 25, Issue 1
A year after the election that ended the rule of president Mikheil Saakashvili’s National Movement, Georgia has seen further remarkable developments that raise key questions for struggling postcommunist democracies and, indeed, democracies everywhere.
January 2014, Volume 25, Issue 1
Improving governance in the EU’s new member states remains a huge challenge for the European project. Why has the EU succeeded in promoting democracy among its postcommunist members but failed in promoting good governance?
January 2014, Volume 25, Issue 1
The changes that civil societies in Central and Eastern Europe have experienced since communism’s fall are real, but often misunderstood.
January 2014, Volume 25, Issue 1
Communism is gone, but while it was alive and in power it bred profound moral pathologies that still haunt the region.
January 2014, Volume 25, Issue 1
“New media” may generate a lot of buzz, but authoritarian regimes are proving disturbingly adept both at counteracting them and at using more traditional media to help themselves hang on to power.
January 2014, Volume 25, Issue 1
Beset by economic and political crises, democracy in southern Europe has been eroding, along with support for the EU. These developments stem largely from the design of the euro, which denies key economic-policy tools to national governments.
January 2014, Volume 25, Issue 1
January 2014 marks the tenth anniversary of Afghanistan’s constitution. In what areas has it succeeded or failed? Judging by its achievements with respect to four midrange goals, the document has a record that is decidedly mixed.
January 2014, Volume 25, Issue 1
Liberalism as a governing order is barely two centuries old. A response to the great alternatives presented by Europe’s political history, it represents a unique synthesis of the ancient and the modern. But globalization has cast a deep shadow across liberalism’s future.
January 2014, Volume 25, Issue 1
After a half-century of brutal communist rule and two decades of troubled postcommunist life, this small Balkan state surprised many by achieving a successful turnover of power by means of the ballot.
October 2013, Volume 24, Issue 4
What is the relationship between high-quality state administration and democracy? A look back at modern Greece and Italy, along with Germany and the United States, provides some insights.
October 2013, Volume 24, Issue 4
“Governance,” once merely a synonym for government, has taken on new meanings that tend to downplay the importance of the political. But can “good governance” be achieved today without the protections of liberal democracy?
October 2013, Volume 24, Issue 4
Popular uprisings have occurred only in some Arab states and in even fewer have authoritarian rulers been overthrown. What factors allow us to predict whether an authoritarian regime will be vulnerable?
