3264 Results
April 2017, Volume 28, Issue 2
This small West African country voted a longtime dictator out of the presidency. This victory for democracy was seemingly snatched away by his refusal to leave power—yet a breathtaking reversal lay in store.
The Russian system of personalized power is growing ever more dependent on the same strategies that proved useless in sustaining the USSR. While the system still has the potential to limp along, its survival tactics render the it progressively more dysfunctional. Among the circumstances weighing against the system’s survival are the unintended yet logical consequences…
The Chinese Communist Party is deadly serious about its authoritarian designs, and it is bent on promoting them. It is time for the world’s democracies to get serious, too. | Michael Beckley and Hal Brands
October 2015, Volume 26, Issue 4
How did a potent Islamist movement come to accept a non-Islamist constitution? The answer lies in that movement’s self-protective reflexes.
April 2011, Volume 22, Issue 2
The past decade began at a high point for freedom but ended with freedom in peril. Yet the setbacks of the last five years do not outweigh the democratic gains of the last forty.
July 2002, Volume 13, Issue 3
The coauthor of the seminal work on democratic transitions sets the record straight on what the scholarly literature actually says.
July 1993, Volume 4, Issue 3
A review of Freedom House’s Freedom in the World: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties, 1992-1993.
April 2006, Volume 17, Issue 2
Authoritarians are stepping up their offensive against democracy promotion, and democracy-assistance organizations will have to meet the challenge.
October 1998, Volume 9, Issue 4
The Editors’ introduction to “Is Ethiopia Democratic?”
October 1998, Volume 9, Issue 4
The Editors’ introduction to “Liberal Voices from China.”
October 2004, Volume 15, Issue 4
The lack of democracy in the Arab world is a problem that goes far beyond the absence of competitive elections. This lack must be traced not to religion or culture, but to adverse historical and geostrategic circumstances.
January 2002, Volume 13, Issue 1
The year 2001 saw modest gains in the strengthening and consolidation of democracy worldwide, but in predominantly Muslim countries—especially the Arab states—the status of freedom and democracy lags far behind the rest of the world.
January 2006, Volume 17, Issue 1
Taking advantage of the withdrawal of Syrian troops, Lebanese voters capped the "Beirut Spring" by electing a new majority in parliament.
October 2011, Volume 22, Issue 4
Across the Arab world, militaries have played a key role in determining whether revolts against dictatorship succeed or fail. What factors determine how and why “the guys with guns” line up the way they do?
July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3
Read the full essay here. India’s Supreme Court has played the role of a countermajoritarian check but has also flirted with populism. This essay examines three aspects of India’s higher judiciary: the struggle between the judiciary and the other branches over “custody” of the Constitution; the question of judicial independence and who has the right…
July 2014, Volume 25, Issue 3
The regime of Vladimir Putin has been a key driver of the crisis in Ukraine. Under challenge at home for several years now, it turned to Ukraine in part to firm up its own grip on power in Russia.
July 2012, Volume 23, Issue 3
On 9 December 2011, incumbent president Joseph Kabila was declared the official winner of the DRC’s deeply flawed presidential election, resulting in a legal president without legitimacy and an uncertain political future.
January 2011, Volume 22, Issue 1
The financial crisis did not deal a fatal blow to any democracies, but it did hasten an erosion of the influence of the West. In the future, the balance of power among competing regime types may be decided by the emerging-market democracies.
January 2010, Volume 21, Issue 1
The 1989 revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe were the triumph of civic dignity over Leninism. The first decade of postcommunism saw the project of an open society strongly challenged by ethnocratic temptations. The most important new idea brought about by the revolutions of 1989 was the rethinking and the restoration of citizenship.
January 2003, Volume 14, Issue 1
Class politics is an ever more important reality, but the growth of capitalism is not likely to produce pressures for democratization.
