1931 Results
July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3
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…
July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3
Political elites once held referendums to fend off challenges to European integration. More recently, Euroskeptic parties have employed referendums to batter down the walls of elite consensus. But the spread of referendums threatens to undermine the legitimacy of representative democracy.
July 2016, Volume 27, Issue 3
As more and more African presidents attempt to remove or circumvent constitutional term limits, African populations increasingly are mobilizing en masse, at great risk, to defend their constitutions.
July 2016, Volume 27, Issue 3
Latin America has not been witnessing a general trend toward authoritarianism, but accountability—whether horizontal, vertical, or both—has suffered in some countries, and at times has done so as a side-effect or unexpected cost of what must be considered signal democratic advances toward noble goals such as greater social and political inclusion.
July 2016, Volume 27, Issue 3
Long a standout example of consensus-based politics, prosperous Switzerland has now become a mixed democracy with a good deal of polarization and uncertain prospects.
July 2014, Volume 25, Issue 3
Despite the spirit of participation that characterized the Maidan, organized civil society groups were not a key factor.
July 2014, Volume 25, Issue 3
Media, both new and traditional and both Russian and Ukrainian, played a major role in the EuroMaidan story from the very outset.
July 2014, Volume 25, Issue 3
Tiny countries have come in for praise as miniature models of democracy, but closer examination tells a mainly more somber tale.
July 2014, Volume 25, Issue 3
In February 2014, Salvadorans narrowly elected as president a former FMLN guerrilla commander, but he will have to deal with a dire economy and horrific levels of crime.
July 2012, Volume 23, Issue 3
Although they have quieted down as quickly as they flared up, the clamorous protests that followed the dishonest Russian legislative elections in December 2011 have essentially destroyed Putin’s regime, the infamous “managed democracy.”
July 2012, Volume 23, Issue 3
Until recently, political scientists argued that democracy had poor chances of survival in a multiparty presidential regime. Latin America’s recent experience tells a different story.
July 2024, Volume 35, Issue 3
While he did not achieve the sweeping victory many predicted, Narendra Modi led his ruling coalition to a third consecutive victory. In so doing, he is laying the foundation for a new political order in which India is simultaneously more democratic and more illiberal.
July 2020, Volume 31, Issue 3
His regime has hung onto power despite setbacks that would have toppled most democratic governments. Besides pure repression, Maduro has developed new autocratic tools that have kept Venezuela’s authoritarian state afloat.
July 2021, Volume 32, Issue 3
Once mostly found in authoritarian regimes, personalism is now putting established democracies in peril—a trend that digital technology will likely make worse.
July 2024, Volume 35, Issue 3
There is a troubling tension around “people power” in Africa today: African social movements are among the most successful at ousting autocrats. But the continent’s entrenched antidemocratic institutions leave these victories highly vulnerable to reversal.
July 2025, Volume 36, Issue 3
Iran’s theocracy has waged a brutal campaign against its own citizens for years. Now that the Woman, Life, Freedom movement has stripped the regime of any legitimacy, the mullahs have had no response but to sharpen their instruments of repression.
January 2011, Volume 22, Issue 1
Reports on elections in Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Burma, Côte d'Ivoire, Egypt, Guinea, Haiti, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Moldova, Tanzania, Tonga, Venezuela.
July 2015, Volume 26, Issue 3
Excerpts from: Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari’s inaugural address; a speech given by Leon Wieseltier honoring the slain Russian opposition politician and former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov; the conclusion of the report “Putin.War”; Azerbaijani journalist Khadija Ismayilova's letter from prison.
January 2017, Volume 28, Issue 1
Reports on elections in Belarus, Bulgaria, Cape Verde, Cote d'Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Georgia, Haiti, Kuwait, Jordan, Lithuania, Montenegro, Morocco, Nicaragua, Palau, Russia, Uzbekistan.
July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3
Prague Appeal for Democratic Renewal. Excerpts from: the inaugural address of French president Emmanuel Macron; remarks by Chilean politician and political scientist Sergio Bitar, recipient of the inaugural Guillermo O’Donnell Democracy Award and Lecture-ship.
