3264 Results
April 2025, Volume 36, Issue 2
Delivery matters, but so do leaders’ actions. Why have so many, in both strong and weak economies, been pushing against democratic constraints on their power, and why have those constraints failed to contain them?
October 2018, Volume 29, Issue 4
AMLO’s sweeping victory in Mexico’s 2018 elections could point to a long-term dealignment of the country’s party system, but it is more likely that a less radical process of partisan recomposition will take place.
April 2025, Volume 36, Issue 2
Ukraine versus Russia is a modern David versus Goliath conflict that matters not only for the future of Ukraine, but for that of democracy itself.
April 2002, Volume 13, Issue 2
Last year, Bulgarians elected their newly returned former king as prime minister and then, in a shocking upset, ousted their incumbent president. What do these results portend for the future of Bulgarian democracy?
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
Beijing is bent on deploying mass surveillance to eliminate threats to its rule. It is terrifying—and the latest example of its determination to remold society.
April 2001, Volume 12, Issue 2
Read the full essay here.
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.
The ANC lost its majority for the first time, but populist forces were held at bay.
July 2024, Volume 35, Issue 3
The “crisis” of democracy is a crisis of representation. New parties, some of which are populist in troublingly illiberal ways, are arising from this moment. The danger that they pose is not that they are antidemocratic, but that they are antiliberal.
July 2025, Volume 36, Issue 3
Capitalism is often blamed for democracy’s ills. But much of the blame is misplaced. It is not business capture of the state but rather state capture of business that poses the greatest danger to democracy.
The break between the military and former prime minister Imran Khan marks a new era of instability. Is this the rise of an autocratic deep state or the fall of authoritarian populism? | Ayesha Jalal
April 2001, Volume 12, Issue 2
The sudden and surprising downfall of President Alberto Fujimori has opened the way for a return to democracy in Peru, but the country’s new leaders will face major challenges in the coming years.
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 2025, Volume 36, Issue 4
After a turbulent election cycle, with an incumbent leader postponing the vote and putting his thumb on the scale, voters elected a new president and, for the third time in Senegalese history, a new ruling party. How did the country keep its democracy from crumbling?
July 2018, Volume 29, Issue 3
For countries emerging from communism, the post-1989 imperative to “be like the West” has generated discontent and even a “return of the repressed,” as the region feels old nationalist stirrings and new demographic pressures.
October 2005, Volume 16, Issue 4
The large number of nonvoters suggests that the movement for a free, internationally monitored referendum on the Islamic Republic’s constitution could gain widespread support. We must now work to make that so.
January 2002, Volume 13, Issue 1
After September 11 and the start of the U.S.-led war on terrorists in Afghanistan, the Pakistani military regime of Pervez Musharraf found itself at the center of world attention. What do these new and dramatically changed circumstances portend for a possible return to elected, civilian rule in Islamabad?
July 2025, Volume 36, Issue 3
Maria Sarungi Tsehai refuses to be silent; Ekrem İmamoğlu’s letter from prison; a Venezuelan opposition leader’s final message before his arrest; a 19-year-old Russian dissident’s final court statement; Dominican protesters and journalists march for freedom of the press; and the Tiananmen Mothers remember the massacre.
Elections in nearly eighty countries around the world captured headlines throughout 2024. Meanwhile, NATO turned 75, Viktor Orbán ramped up his repression, and Bitcoin became the currency of choice for democracy activists under threat. These ten essays were the JoD’s most-read online exclusives of 2024.
The Venezuelan dictator defied sanctions, international isolation, and massive protests. He appears to have a firmer footing than he’s had in years. Now what? | Will Freeman
