1290 Results
April 2010, Volume 21, Issue 2
In emerging democracies and postconflict countries, improved policing is almost always urgently required. Yet international-assistance efforts in this area pay almost no attention to the crucial need to ensure that the new-model police are not only effective, but democracy-friendly.
April 2010, Volume 21, Issue 2
Amid a climate of rising crime and insecurity as well as economic uncertainty produced by the global downturn, can the study of public opinion and attitudes reveal which Central American countries are most at risk of democratic reversals?
January 2010, Volume 21, Issue 1
Read the full essay here. The recent history of Eastern Europe can best be understood as a transition to a new social contract between the postcommunist state that emerged from its communist predecessor and the postcommunist citizen who evolved from the communist subject. It is the relationship between state and society under communism that best…
October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
Both Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe have undergone significant democratization in recent years. Yet each region retains a distinctive approach, grounded in its own history, to common problems of social welfare and inequality.
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Read the full essay here. Although China’s farmers did not play a large role in the 1989 protests, they have been quite contentious since. Rural unrest has been triggered in part by reforms and in part by savvy “peasant leaders” who quickly seize opportunities that appear. Recently, many protest leaders have concluded that tame forms…
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
Do young democracies have to "deliver the goods" economically in order to win political legitimacy in their citizens' eyes? Public opinion data from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Arab world suggest some fascinating answers.
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
The legislature is emerging as a "player" in some African countries, though not in others. What is the relationship between legislative development and democratic consolidation in Africa?
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
Africa is a battleground between formal democratic institutions and rule by the will of the "big man." Civil society groups are waging this struggle, and technology is equipping them with surprising new tools.
January 2008, Volume 19, Issue 1
While the people of South Asia, especially those with higher levels of education and exposure to the media, prefer democracy to authoritarianism, they are willing to relax some of the requirements of liberal democracy.
January 2008, Volume 19, Issue 1
Findings from the Arab Barometer say little about whether there are likely to be transitions to democracy in the Arab world in the years ahead, but they do offer evidence that citizens' attitudes and values are not the reason that authoritarianism has persisted.
January 2008, Volume 19, Issue 1
Attitudes toward democracy in Latin America vary from country to country, and within countries between left and right. Public opinion is strongly affected by the success or failure of political leaders in delivering social and economic change.
January 2008, Volume 19, Issue 1
In order for a country to move beyond mere electoral democracy, ordinary people must acquire resources and values that allow them to pressure elites. Human empowerment is essential for the development of "effective democracy."
October 2007, Volume 18, Issue 4
Having suffered under both of the twentieth century's most brutal brands of dictatorship—fascism and communism—the CEE peoples have been dreaming of a new and better future, the future of the European Union and the Euro-Atlantic community.
October 2007, Volume 18, Issue 4
Where indigenous peoples constitute a smaller share of the electorate, their recent inclusion denotes a more generalized opening of the political system to excluded and vulnerable sectors of society.
July 2005, Volume 16, Issue 3
Even after its successful elections, Iraq remains a divided society. Democracy did not create these divisions, but it could be the key to managing them.
January 2005, Volume 16, Issue 1
Modest progress in the muslim-majority countries is complemented by mass mobilization for democracy and freedom in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russia ranks as Not Free for the first time since the fall of communism.
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.
October 2004, Volume 15, Issue 4
Muslim-majority, non-Arab countries are “overachievers” at electoral competitiveness. Arab countries, by contrast, constitute a distinctive political community that at present is inhospitable to competitive elections.
July 2004, Volume 15, Issue 3
The first flush of democratic hopes has faded, as the recent elections have emphasized. But the democratic idea has a foothold, and the presidential machine that swept those elections will not have an easy time retaining its sway.
July 2020, Volume 31, Issue 3
His regime has hung onto power despite setbacks that would have toppled most democratic governments. Besides pure repression, Maduro has developed new autocratic tools that have kept Venezuela’s authoritarian state afloat.
