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Democracy in Retrograde pdf download

How Qatar Became a World Leader in Sportswashing

The government has spent billions preparing to host the 2022 World Cup. Never mind the abusive labor practices and human rights violations. It’s betting that your love of the “beautiful game” will make you more fond of this tiny Gulf state, too. | Sarath K. Ganji

Why the French Strike

Why are the French protesting this time? Emmanuel Macron is imposing deeply unpopular reforms, and it’s one of the only ways left to check an arrogant and tone deaf president. | Moshik Temkin

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April 2016, Volume 27, Issue 2

The Puzzle of the Chinese Middle Class

Seymour Martin Lipset argued that economic development would enlarge the middle class, and that the middle class would support democracy. To what extent will this general proposition prove true of China?

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July 2008, Volume 19, Issue 3

The Real Causes of the Color Revolutions

The “color revolutions” in the postcommunist countries cannot be attributed to diffusion alone. Structural factors offer a better explanation of why such revolutions have succeeded in some countries and not in others.

October 2023, Volume 34, Issue 4

How Guatemala Defied the Odds

Almost no one expected a little-known candidate to defeat the ruling antidemocratic regime at the ballot box. But the Guatemalan opposition, backed by the international community, exploited the criminal oligarchy’s fissures to halt the country’s authoritarian slide.

January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1

Sri Lanka: The Return to Ethnocracy

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.

October 2017, Volume 28, Issue 4

The Kremlin Emboldened: Paradoxes of Decline

Read the full essay here. The Russian system of personalized power is growing ever more dependent on the same strategies that proved useless in sustaining the USSR. While the system still has the potential to limp along, its survival tactics render the it progressively more dysfunctional. Among the circumstances weighing against the system’s survival are…

July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3

China’s Disaffected Insiders

The CCP regime has lost support among three groups it should normally be able to count on: street-level police, retired military officers, and state employees who are drafted into stifling dissent on the part of their own relatives. 

January 2017, Volume 28, Issue 1

The Three Regions of the Old Soviet Bloc

Today, there are three parts of the old Soviet bloc—one is democratic, another is wholly authoritarian, and a third “intermediate” group is caught between two worlds. This last should be the main focus of Western assistance.

January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1

China at the Tipping Point? The Troubled Periphery

The response of the Chinese state (and of Chinese society at large) to the problems of the country’s periphery—Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia, as well as hundreds of counties, prefectures, and townships in Sichuan, Qinghai, Yunnan, and other areas—is piling more tension and misery upon the populations there, but it is not undermining state power.