2893 Results

Democracy in Retrograde pdf download

July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3

India’s Democracy at 70: The Impact of Instant Universal Suffrage

Read the full essay here. When the authors of India’s Constitution took the extraordinarily bold step of establishing universal suffrage, thus giving the right to vote to all adult citizens, India became the world’s first large democracy to adopt universal adult suffrage from its very inception. We call India’s move “instant universal suffrage,” and distinguish…

January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1

China at the Tipping Point? Goodbye to Gradualism

China is heading toward a tipping point, with two likely scenarios for how a political opening will come about. Most Chinese intellectuals think that only gradualism—“slow and steady,” step-by-step reform—can offer China a safe and feasible path toward liberal democracy. But they are wrong. Instead of “taking it slow,” China should shun gradualism and opt…

October 2025, Volume 36, Issue 4

Why Senegal’s Democracy Survived

After a turbulent election cycle, with an incumbent leader postponing the vote and putting his thumb on the scale, voters elected a new president and, for the third time in Senegalese history, a new ruling party. How did the country keep its democracy from crumbling?

July 2018, Volume 29, Issue 3

Enrolling India

A review of How India Became Democratic: Citizenship and the Making of the Universal Franchise by Ornit Shani.

October 2020, Volume 31, Issue 4

Election Watch

Reports on elections in Burundi, Guyana, Mali, Poland, Serbia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Suriname, and Vanuatu.

October 2024, Volume 35, Issue 4

The Long Decline of South Africa’s ANC

After thirty years of ANC dominance, the 2024 elections have ushered in multiparty politics in South Africa. Will the party’s centrist shift be enough to stop its descent, or is it destined to fracture further?

The Top Ten Most-Read Essays of 2021

In 2021, democracy’s fortunes were tested, and a tumultuous world became even more turbulent. Democratic setbacks arose in places as far flung as Burma, El Salvador, Tunisia, and Sudan, and a 20-year experiment in Afghanistan collapsed in days. The world’s democracies were beset by rising polarization, and people watched in shock as an insurrection took…

July 2024, Volume 35, Issue 3

Documents on Democracy

Georgian Luka Gviniashvili on protesting the foreign-agent bill; a speech by Evgenia Kara-Murza to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe; an Iranian rapper denounces Toomaj Salehi’s death sentence; Carl Gershman on Mário Soares and the fiftieth anniversary of Portugal’s Carnation Revolution; a Ugandan political prisoner’s court-martial hearing; María Corina Machado wins the Global…

July 2025, Volume 36, Issue 3

Documents on Democracy

Maria Sarungi Tsehai refuses to be silent; Ekrem İmamoğlu’s letter from prison; a Venezuelan opposition leader’s final message before his arrest; a 19-year-old Russian dissident’s final court statement; Dominican protesters and journalists march for freedom of the press; and the Tiananmen Mothers remember the massacre.

July 2005, Volume 16, Issue 3

Election Watch

Reports on elections in Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Togo, and Zimbabwe.

April 2001, Volume 12, Issue 2

Election Watch

Reports on elections in Benin, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Moldova, Samoa, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, and Yugoslavia (Serbia).

April 1996, Volume 7, Issue 2

Election Watch

Reports on elections in Bangladesh, Benin, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Haiti, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Turkey, West Bank and Gaza. 

January 2023, Volume 34, Issue 1

Documents on Democracy

Featuring Canadian deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland’s remarks on defending democracy; a letter by Chinese and Hong Kong socialists on China’s “zero-covid” protests; Shervin Hajipour’s song “Baraye,” the unofficial anthem of the protests in Iran; Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen’s remarks on shoring up democratic resilience in Taiwan and globally; and Gambian human-rights lawyer Fatou Bensouda’s…

April 2017, Volume 28, Issue 2

Election Watch

Reports on elections in Bulgaria, Côte d’Ivoire, Ecuador, Macedonia, Micronesia, Romania, Somalia, and Timor-Leste.