1930 Results
July 2024, Volume 35, Issue 3
The Salvadoran president’s “iron fist” policies have become one of the most popular political brands in Latin America. But the very reasons that explain his success in El Salvador point to why his repressive approach will not succeed elsewhere.
July 2021, Volume 32, Issue 3
Nayib Bukele has developed a blend of political tactics that combines populist appeals and classic autocratic behavior with a polished social-media brand. It poses a dire threat to the country’s democratic institutions.
July 1997, Volume 8, Issue 3
Read the full essay here.
July 2023, Volume 34, Issue 3
Behind today’s authoritarian wave are democratically elected leaders who use and abuse institutions to undermine the system that brought them to power. But with the right strategies, opposition forces can slow or stop these would-be autocrats.
April 2019, Volume 30, Issue 2
Reports on elections in Bangladesh, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, El Salvador, Estonia, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Moldova, Nigeria, Senegal, and Togo.
Who is Nayib Bukele? Meet the president of El Salvador, the world’s most popular dictator.
July 2024, Volume 35, Issue 3
If democracies did a better job “delivering” for their citizens, so the thinking goes, people would not be so ready to embrace antidemocratic alternatives. Not so. This conventional wisdom about democratic backsliding is seldom true and often not accurate at all.
October 2020, Volume 31, Issue 4
By highlighting the deficiencies of authoritarian-populist president Jair Bolsonaro’s rule, the covid-19 pandemic is likely to leave Brazil’s democracy intact but even more brittle.
April 2022, Volume 33, Issue 2
International spying and digital subversion used to be the province of governments. Now anyone who has the cash can order hi-tech snooping and surveillance. This is a threat to the future of freedom.
Readers can download the following articles on iTunes free of charge: Edward Aspinall and Marcus Mietzner, “Southeast Asia’s Troubling Elections: Nondemocratic Pluralism in Indonesia” (October 2019) Rod Alence and Anne Pitcher, “Resisting State Capture in South Africa” (October 2019) Mai Hassan and Ahmed Kodouda, “Sudan’s Uprising: The Fall of a Dictator” (October 2019) Sheri Berman…
El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele may be overwhelmingly popular, but he wasn’t going to let his electoral ambitions hinge on being well-liked. Instead, he rigged the playing field before the first vote was cast.
April 2021, Volume 32, Issue 2
Reports on elections in the Central African Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Niger, Uganda.
Reports on elections in Comoros, El Salvador, Senegal, and Tuvalu.
The latest issue of the Journal of Democracy covers important and alarming global trends, including political polarization and rising illiberalism, as well the struggle between autocrats and democrats in Africa, Latin America, South Asia, and beyond. Read it before it goes behind a paywall.
Of course not. But the region’s democratic hopes are fighting an uphill battle against corruption, crime, and a violent past.
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 2021, Volume 32, Issue 3
Excerpts from: Maria Ressa’s comments on social media at the 2021 Copenhagen Democracy Summit; NGO statement on the arrest of Algerian human-rights defenders; statement denouncing the dismissal of Constitutional Court judges and the attorney general; letter on the sentencing of a Saudi man for allegedly running a satirical Twitter account.
July 2019, Volume 30, Issue 3
Election officials made strides toward secure voter identification, and a two-party system appears to be emerging, but the 2019 elections revealed continuing problems with vote-buying and violence.
April 2024, Volume 35, Issue 2
Around the world, democracy has lost steam. If we are to regain the momentum, we must harness these essential elements and wage the struggle with the conviction that the times demand.
April 2025, Volume 36, Issue 2
Voters around the world are losing faith in democracy’s ability to deliver and increasingly turning toward more authoritarian alternatives. To restore citizens’ confidence, democracies must show they can make progress without sacrificing accountability.
