3154 Results
October 2003, Volume 14, Issue 4
For about a century after 1850, the Middle East enjoyed an imperfect yet real "Liberal Age." The roots of some of the key institutions of that era remain today. Can they be nurtured into a second spring?
January 2024, Volume 35, Issue 1
Advanced AI faces twin perils: the collapse of democratic control over key state functions or the concentration of political and economic power in the hands of the few. Avoiding these risks will require new ways of governing.
October 2023, Volume 34, Issue 4
Despite worry of an authoritarian resurgence, the vast majority of “third wave” democracies are enduring. Democracy, buoyed by economic growth and urbanization, is outperforming most people’s expectations or fears.
July 2022, Volume 33, Issue 3
More than window dressing, public-opinion surveys and elections provide a crucial insight into the Russian people’s relationship with their regime.
July 2022, Volume 33, Issue 3
Xi Jinping undercut China’s political norms to cement his own power and brand of rule. But in so doing the “Chairman of Everything” has introduced new vulnerabilities for the regime.
April 2022, Volume 33, Issue 2
The country’s opposition beat an authoritarian incumbent by unifying, organizing its supporters, and contesting every election no matter the odds. Can the strategy be applied elsewhere?
July 2021, Volume 32, Issue 3
To stop surveillance capitalism, take aim at the targeted advertising that fuels it.
April 2021, Volume 32, Issue 2
While many blamed President John Magufuli for throwing the country off its democratizing track, the truth is that the party that has ruled Tanzania for six decades has always been authoritarian.
April 2020, Volume 31, Issue 2
Out of power and with promises to jumpstart a lagging economy, the fractured Peronists reunified and reclaimed the presidency. Now they must deliver what voters want.
January 2020, Volume 31, Issue 1
To grasp why post-Mao China’s remarkable economic development has not aided democracy, we must look first at the policies of top Chinese leaders.
April 2018, Volume 29, Issue 2
It has long been hoped that China would be integrated into the liberal world order. That particular “China dream” has ended, however, as Beijing seeks to reshape the world order, with itself at the center.
October 2016, Volume 27, Issue 4
Tunisia is a small country, but its influential Islamist party has taken a big step by separating its political wing from its religious activities.
July 2016, Volume 27, Issue 3
The interplay between elections, popular protests, and international pressures has a profound effect on the behavior of African autocrats and their ability to stay in power even after their time is up.
July 2016, Volume 27, Issue 3
One of the first Latin American countries to make a democratic transition as the 1970s ended, Ecuador struggled in its search for political stability. Now it appears to have more stability, but that stability appears more authoritarian than democratic.
July 2016, Volume 27, Issue 3
After spending the 1990s coping with an overweening president, Peru settled into a more sedate style of politics, but it is one in which parties barely exist, voters feel unhappy with their elected chief executives despite strong economic growth, and technocracy rather than democracy is the key mode of decision making.
January 2016, Volume 27, Issue 1
A change in the shape of partisan competition, and the traditional parties’ ability to adapt to it, has led to the decline of once-pervasive clientelism.
October 2015, Volume 26, Issue 4
Latin American countries are burdened with domestic security problems and institutional weaknesses that have led to a rising political role for the military forces. Are there serious dangers in this “turn toward the barracks”?
July 2015, Volume 26, Issue 3
Europe in the Middle Ages was hardly democratic, but it did have law-based institutions that could and did stay the hands of kings, laying a crucial basis for future state-building and democracy-building alike.
July 2015, Volume 26, Issue 3
It is fine to acknowledge the importance of law-based rule to the eventual rise of modern democracy, but we must not overlook the even greater contribution of the idea of equality.
January 2015, Volume 26, Issue 1
Rather than being in decline, democracy is in crisis due to the gap between the democratic ideal and how democracy is actually being practiced. It will survive by transitioning into a new, as yet unknown, form.
