January 2004, Volume 15, Issue 1
Election Watch
Reports on elections in Azerbaijan, Croatia, Georgia, Grenada, Guatemala, Mauritania, Rwanda, and Serbia.
April 2022, Volume 33, Issue 2
What Putin Fears Most
Forget his excuses. Russia’s autocrat doesn’t worry about NATO. What terrifies him is the prospect of a flourishing Ukrainian democracy.
January 2019, Volume 30, Issue 1
Documents on Democracy
Excerpts from: the G7 Charlevoix Commitment on Defending Democracy from Foreign Threats; victory speech by Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro; inaugural address by Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador; inaugural address by Maldivian president Ibrahim Mohamed Solih; remarks by Angolan journalist Rafael Marques; and address by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Washington Declaration.
April 2014, Volume 25, Issue 2
Election Watch
Reports on elections in Bangladesh, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Libya, Madagascar, Mali, and Thailand.
July 2024, Volume 35, Issue 3
Misunderstanding Democratic Backsliding
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.
July 2021, Volume 32, Issue 3
China at the UN: Choking Civil Society
Beijing is using red tape, procedural rules, and a little help from its authoritarian allies to strangle NGOs seeking to participate in the world body.
July 2018, Volume 29, Issue 3
Explaining Eastern Europe: The Crisis of Liberalism
Thirty years ago in Central and Eastern Europe, belief in an open society and a sense of reasserted national and indeed European identity seemed to go hand-in-hand. But that was then.
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
Documents on Democracy
Iranian women’s rights activist Shaparak Shajarizadeh’s speech accepting the Morris B. Abram award; the World Uyghur Congress statement for the UN’s 75th anniversary; call by NGOs for the release of human-rights advocate Ramy Kamel in Egypt; NGO statement on the police response to Thai prodemocracy protests; statement of support for LGBTI activists in Poland; statement…
July 2001, Volume 12, Issue 3
Election Watch
Reports on elections in Albania, Benin, Chad, Guyana, Iran, Micronesia, Mongolia, Peru, Philippines, Senegal, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Uganda, and Yugoslavia (Montenegro).
Exchange on Nicaragua
Commentary on Leslie Anderson and Larry Dodd's July 2009 essay on Nicaragua's 2008 municipal elections.
January 1, 2010
January 2016, Volume 27, Issue 1
Transition Leaders Speak
A review of Democratic Transitions: Conversations with World Leaders, edited by Sergio Bitar and Abraham F. Lowenthal.
Election Results—January 2024
Reports on elections in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Serbia, Sint Maarten, and Taiwan.
January 2020, Volume 31, Issue 1
30 Years of World Politics: What Has Changed?
Democracies are grappling with an era of transformation: Identity is increasingly replacing economics as the major axis of world politics. Technological change has deepened social fragmentation, and trust in institutions is falling. As our most basic assumptions come under question, can liberal democracy rebuild itself?
October 2021, Volume 32, Issue 4
Russia’s Road to Autocracy
Thirty years after the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia is firmly in the grip of an autocrat. Where did Russia’s path go wrong?
October 2014, Volume 25, Issue 4
Election Watch
Reports on elections in Afghanistan, Colombia, Indonesia, Libya, Mauritania, Slovenia, and Turkey.
Why He May Soon Be Remembered as “Putin the Weak”
The Russian autocrat wanted to go down in history on par with Russia’s greatest leaders. He is increasingly looking like one of its weakest. | Michael McFaul
July 2023, Volume 34, Issue 3
Documents on Democracy
Activist Xu Zhiyong on the Imperative for a Democratic China; Historian Timothy Snyder on “Russophobia”; Fadzayi Mahere on why Zimbabwe is a tragedy; a call for the release of the speaker of Tunisia’s parliament, Rached Ghannouchi; a Burmese student recounts her experience as a strike leader following the 2021 military coup.
January 2009, Volume 20, Issue 1
Can Cuba Change? Ferment in Civil Society
The opposition within Cuba has become more diverse as well as more unified, and the regime, despite its enduring capacity for repression, is showing signs of underlying weakness.