2893 Results
July 1998, Volume 9, Issue 3
Indians appear to love the practice of democracy so much that they are in danger of overdoing it. In February and March of 1998, the world's largest democracy held its twelfth general election since gaining its independence a half-century ago. The voting was largely fair and peaceful. New, right-of-center rulers led by the Bharatiya Janata…
October 2025, Volume 36, Issue 4
Artificial intelligence and its effects on democracy are a matter of choice, not fate. The concerns are longer term than the recent spate of worry about “generative” AI would suggest. The democratic conversation about AI has hardly begun.
April 2013, Volume 24, Issue 2
It is easy for Islamists to accept the democratic principle of majority rule when it results in their being elected to power. But the experience of Pakistan warns us that efforts to “Islamize” laws and public life may be hard to reverse even if Islamists are voted out of office.
April 2004, Volume 15, Issue 2
Events last November confouned expectations set by the failure of democratization in Russia and other ex-Soviet republics, and should prompt new reflections on how fragile openings to democacy may be sustained and widened.
Winter 1990, Volume 1, Issue 1
Our goal at present is the thorough modernization of China. We all have a compelling sense of the need for this. There is a widespread feeling of dissatisfaction with the status quo among people in all walks of life.
January 2025, Volume 36, Issue 1
With illiberal forces ascendant across the globe, protecting individual liberties and the democratic process is crucial. But when institutions empower minority groups over the majority, can democracy survive?
October 2018, Volume 29, Issue 4
What factors help a democracy to survive a crisis? A study of cases in which democracy suffered a steep decline, yet ultimately recovered and endured, offers new insights. In moments of crisis, unelected and nonmajoritarian actors can play a pivotal role.
July 2010, Volume 21, Issue 3
Excerpts from remarks presented by newly elected Chilean president Sebastián Piñera upon signing a set of proposed laws for the strengthening of democracy to be submitted to the Congress.
July 2002, Volume 13, Issue 3
This region’s five republics have just lived through a remarkable first decade of independence that raises questions about “preconditions”-based theories of democratization.
April 2002, Volume 13, Issue 2
Italy has long mixed great local and regional diversity with a unitary approach to governance. In October 2001, however, Italian voters approved a series of changes to their country’s Constitution that could mark a decisive turn toward federalism.
January 2001, Volume 12, Issue 1
Democracy by itself does not put an end to injustice or inequality, but it establishes the most favorable conditions for making progress in the struggle to achieve a just society.
July 2000, Volume 11, Issue 3
Many observers regarded 1999 as a year of progress for democracy in the Arab world. There is reason to doubt, however, whether any meaningful change has really occurred.
January 1994, Volume 5, Issue 1
Read the full essay here.
October 2014, Volume 25, Issue 4
Indonesians came close to electing as their new president a populist challenger promising to restore the country’s predemocratic order. Democracy prevailed in the end, but its continued vulnerability was exposed.
April 2013, Volume 24, Issue 2
Greece was an early success story of the “third wave,” but since the 2008 financial crisis, it has become a poster child for the pains of austerity and unrest. Its troubles at one level are fiscal and economic, but there is a political dimension that may be even more critical.
October 2021, Volume 32, Issue 4
Indonesia’s president claims he is curbing democracy today to save it later. If he is wrong about his long-term wager, democratic institutions may not survive.
January 2020, Volume 31, Issue 1
The country’s hold on electoral democracy is firm, but its claim still to be a liberal democracy is increasingly dubious.
July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3
Plebiscites have grown less common in recent decades in authoritarian and semi-authoritarian countries, even as the use of referendums in democracies has expanded. Despite their many shortcomings, referendums are, on balance, a mechanism for strengthening democracy.
October 2014, Volume 25, Issue 4
Linkage and leverage largely reflect long-term structural factors, and only in certain situations can they be affected by policy choices.
October 2012, Volume 23, Issue 4
The hardest work of the transition—negotiating political pacts—has not yet begun. Burma’s democrats must help to forge a system of mutual security that can allow democratization to proceed.
