
Africa’s Leaders for Life
The continent’s aspiring dictators are attacking term limits with a vengeance, finding new ways to avoid handing over power. But citizens are overwhelmingly against it — and can help keep their leaders in check.
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The continent’s aspiring dictators are attacking term limits with a vengeance, finding new ways to avoid handing over power. But citizens are overwhelmingly against it — and can help keep their leaders in check.
Citizens have lost faith in democracy. Misinformation, disinformation, hyperpolarization, and conspiracies, exacerbated by the modern media environment, have heightened distrust and anger. The following Journal of Democracy essays explore these dynamics and the important role ordinary citizens can play in countering democratic erosion.
Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way’s landmark 2002 essay clarified the shifting democratic landscape of the late twentieth century. Now, competitive authoritarianism more than anything else explains the state of global democracy today.
The Journal of Democracy has partnered with the Review of Democracy podcast to share in-depth conversations with JoD authors on their latest essays. Listen, read, and learn!
Authoritarians weaponize LGBT+ rights to undermine pluralism and cement their rule. Can democracy still protect and advance these rights? Read about how LGBT+ rights have been both expanded and resisted around the world, and offer ideas for how democracies can defend them.
Adam Garfinkle discusses Olivier Roy's "brilliant new essay" in The American Interest's Via Meadia blog.
August 15, 2012
ForeignPolicy.com's Democracy Lab Weekly Brief has once again included the Journal of Democracy among its "recommended reads."
January 16, 2013
Thomas Friedman discusses Larry Diamond's "Facing up to the Democratic Recession" in a New York Times op-ed.
February 18, 2015
On new podcasts produced by NED’s International Forum for Democratic Studies, Larry Diamond discusses “China and the Global Challenge to Democracy,” and Marc F. Plattner explores “Democracy and the Illiberal Temptation.” And don’t miss conversations with recent JoD author Ronald J. Deibert on how social media may be fueling authoritarianism and with April-issue contributor Glenn Tiffert on digital censorship in China…
February 5, 2019
At NPR, Jeff Conroy-Krutz discusses rising support for media crackdowns in Africa, while Jarosław Kuisz and Karolina Wigura consider the appeal of East-Central Europe’s populists in Foreign Policy.
Defending Democracy in an Age of Sharp Power explores how authoritarian regimes are deploying “sharp power” to undermine democracies from within by weaponizing universities, institutions, media, technology, and entertainment.
Recent posts on Forbes.com and ForeignPolicy.com discuss Carl Minzner's July essay on the fate of China's reform era under Xi Jinping.
August 4, 2015
In a special exchange appearing only on our website, distinguished scholars Amy C. Alexander and Christian Welzel; Pippa Norris; and Erik Voeten offer critiques of the July 2016 and January 2017 articles by Roberto Stefan Foa and Yascha Mounk. A reply from Foa and Mounk follows.
August 8, 2017
In a thirty-minute interview, frequent Journal contributor and Editorial Board member Ivan Krastev discusses with the Open Society Foundation’s Leonard Benardo his new book After Europe.
March 28, 2018
Nilay Saiya, whose essay “Why Freedom Defeats Terrorism” appeared in our April issue, argues in a Slate piece based on his article that civil liberties—not crackdowns—are the key to preventing terrorism.