405 Results
April 2011, Volume 22, Issue 2
Dilma Rousseff won the 2010 presidential election as the handpicked successor of a towering political personality. Now she must assert firm sway over a ruling party and coalition to which she has remarkably slender ties, and face new challenges that her country cannot meet with “more of the same.”
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Due to weak opposition parties and presidential dominance, many African countries have not reaped the full benefits of regularly held elections.
October 2004, Volume 15, Issue 4
Law-based rule means a set of basic conditions that make civic life possible. A democratic rule of law requires all that and more, however.
July 2023, Volume 34, Issue 3
People obsess over where Russia’s democracy went wrong. The truth is it did not fail: Russia’s democratic transition never got off the starting blocks.
July 2022, Volume 33, Issue 3
A group of corrupt authoritarian powerholders has impoverished Sri Lanka and even brought starvation to the island. But behind their misrule lies the deeper and longer-term problem of unconstrained majority rule.
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
A review of Conversations with Tocqueville: The Global Democratic Revolution in the Twenty-First Century edited by Aurelian Craiutu and Sheldon Gellar and Tocqueville et les frontières de la démocratie by Nestor Capdevila.
January 2002, Volume 13, Issue 1
Irresponsible leadership and ill-designed institutions have made this island republic prey to a bitter and violent ethnic conflict that is threatening to undermine democracy itself.
October 2004, Volume 15, Issue 4
Over the last two decades, Latin America has seen more than a dozen presidencies come to a premature end. It is time to consider changing constitutional designs that promote conflict rather than more consensual ways of doing politics.
October 2020, Volume 31, Issue 4
By highlighting the deficiencies of authoritarian-populist president Jair Bolsonaro’s rule, the covid-19 pandemic is likely to leave Brazil’s democracy intact but even more brittle.
July 2021, Volume 32, Issue 3
Nayib Bukele has developed a blend of political tactics that combines populist appeals and classic autocratic behavior with a polished social-media brand. It poses a dire threat to the country’s democratic institutions.
October 1995, Volume 6, Issue 4
Review of Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela (1994).
July 2011, Volume 22, Issue 3
Many new democracies have faltered due to high levels of inequality and a deep polarization between the rich and poor. What is the relationship between modern liberal democracy and socioeconomic inequality?
April 2000, Volume 11, Issue 2
The most striking thing about Fernando de la Rua’s presidential victory in Argentina was the routine-even boring-character of the elections. This turn toward normalization is a major break with the past.
July 2013, Volume 24, Issue 3
President Rafael Correa, now entering his third term, has built a curious form of populist-authoritarian regime. He champions redistributionism and a kind of technocratic leftism while assaulting the traditional left along with such mainstays of a liberal society as the freedom of the press.
January 2025, Volume 36, Issue 1
The country’s outgoing president relentlessly attacked Mexico’s democratic institutions, taking it to the brink of authoritarianism. His successor is poised to push its democracy over the edge.
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.
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
The return to power, via elections, of the Rajapaksa family signals the consolidation of a Sinhalese Buddhist ethnocracy. But there are reasons to hope it will not take a turn toward full despotism.
January 2016, Volume 27, Issue 1
The surprising electoral defeat of President Mahinda Rajapaksa in January 2015 was reinforced by his failed comeback in August parliamentary elections.
April 2014, Volume 25, Issue 2
After two decades of elections that produced a number of alternations in power, an impasse over “caretaker government” crippled the 2014 contest and has made single-party rule all too real a prospect.
October 2012, Volume 23, Issue 4
Although active or retired military officers still hold top government posts, direct rule by the military as an institution is over, at least for now.
