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Democracy in Retrograde pdf download

Can Democracy Recover After Autocracy?

How resilient are democracies, really? While many countries have gone from democratic to authoritarian and back again, few have been able to sustain their recovery. The following essays offer strategies for defending and deepening democracy around the world.

What’s to Blame for Democratic Backsliding?

A democratic recession has been sweeping the globe for more than two decades, and it’s picking up steam. What explains this alarming decline? In the April issue, leading scholars debate the root causes of democratic backsliding, and what can be done to stop it.

Is Democracy a Crime in Hong Kong?

On November 19, a Hong Kong court sentenced 45 prominent prodemocracy activists to years in prison in the biggest crackdown yet under the city’s draconian, Beijing-imposed National Security Law. The Journal of Democracy essays below, free for a limited time, detail Hong Kong’s decades-long fight for freedom, and the CCP’s unrelenting repression.

Can Democracy Survive AI?

As artificial intelligence continues to advance at breakneck speed and world powers vie against each other in the AI arms race, democracies are searching for ways to control a technology that is transforming our lives while threatening to break our democratic guardrails.

October Issue Out Now!

Will artificial intelligence end democracy? Plus: Why global democracy is proving to be far more resilient than people think; how African church leaders became unlikely defenders of democracy; and the ways in which vast networks of hidden wealth are eating away at our democratic institutions.

Who Decides What Is Democratic?

The United States, like other polarized democracies, is in turmoil. Increasing radicalism, intolerance, and violence continue to rock the country in the run-up to the November election. These essays reflect on this polarization and how to protect ourselves from the damage it is inflicting.

How Women Make the World Safe for Democracy

On International Women’s Day 2024, the Journal of Democracy celebrates the achievements of all women and highlights the transformative power of women’s political participation and activism.

Three Must Reads from the October Issue!

How can liberal democrats take advantage of nationalism’s enduring appeal? How can Western democracies reduce rising political violence? And how can they protect freedom of expression while also preventing the harms such freedom might cause? The following essays from our new issue provide key answers to these important questions.

The War in Ukraine Two Years On

Two years ago, Vladimir Putin launched an unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands have been wounded or killed in this war of attrition. The following Journal of Democracy essays reveal the impulses that led Putin to launch this brutal campaign and the resilience of those fighting to stop him.

Four Must-Reads from the April Issue! 

What explains democracy’s declining fortunes — governments’ failure to deliver or institutions’ failure to stop power-hungry leaders? Why Ukraine’s defeat would jeopardize the entire liberal-democratic order. And how Syria must navigate the complexities of transitional justice and sectarian violence now that the hard work of rebuilding has begun.

New JoD Available Now

Essays on Eygpt and Syria in latest issue of the Journal of Democracy, as well as Francis Fukuyama and Marc F. Plattner on governance and democracy & essays on the “Arab Spring,” Paraguay, Malaysia, & more.

October 15, 2013

Tocqueville’s Lessons for America on the Fourth of July

Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America is as insightful today as in 1835. On this Fourth of July, the Journal of Democracy is sharing three essays reflecting on the prescience of Tocqueville’s observations from nearly two centuries ago.

The Fight for Democracy in Europe

Fed up with corrupt and increasingly autocratic rule, citizens in Georgia, Romania, Serbia, and Slovakia have been rising up in protest.

Getting Over the Third Wave

Samuel Huntington’s classic theory offered a new way of understanding democracy’s global trajectory. But amid rising populism and increasingly aggressive authoritarian leaders, has Huntington’s thesis outlived its usefulness?

Is India Still a Democracy?

Democratic institutions, norms, and practices have been under threat in India. Should the country’s democracy fail, it will affect not only the lives of 1.4 billion Indians, but also democracy movements around the world.

December’s Most-Read Essays

As 2024 draws to a close, democracy faces urgent threats: increasing aggression from Russia and China, rapidly advancing AI, heightened polarization, and populist leaders in India and elsewhere bending democracy to their will. Here are the Journal of Democracy’s ten most-read essays over the past month.