April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Kosovo: Independence and Tutelage
In February 2008, Kosovo broke away from Serbia and declared its independence. But to what extent is it making progress toward its goals of sovereignty and democracy?
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QUE LE PASO A Z GAS
January 2009, Volume 20, Issue 1
The Curious Case of Finland’s Clean Politics
The case of Finland challenges conventional thinking on clean politics. Can it serve as a model for its more corrupt counterparts?
October 2008, Volume 19, Issue 4
Pakistan After Musharraf: The 2008 Elections
Elections set the stage for the General’s exit after nearly a decade in power, yet Pakistan still faces deep-seated structural problems that cannot be remedied merely by a return to competitive electoral politics.
October 2008, Volume 19, Issue 4
Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy: Growth Without Prosperity in Africa
Fifteen years after the wave of democratization crested in Africa, the region still grapples with an economic malaise that is disappointing popular expectations and undermining the legitimacy of electoral regimes.
July 2008, Volume 19, Issue 3
ASEAN’s “Black Swans”
Can regionalism help to redress the uneven spread and internal weaknesses of democracy in Southeast Asia? Unforeseen events in the region and positive political entrepreneurship may yet transform ASEAN into a force for democracy.
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
Politics, Markets, and Society in Lula’s Brazil
Brazil under Lula offers a test case of how politicians and societal interests in developing countries react when economic growth and new possibilities change the name of the game from shock and scarcity to boom and prosperity.
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
The 2007 Freedom House Survey: Is the Tide Turning?
Authoritarian pushback continued to affect key regions and countries in 2007, but the courage, energy, and creativity that democrats continued to show gives reason to think that their cause has brighter days ahead.
January 2008, Volume 19, Issue 1
Morocco’s Elections: Islamists, Technocrats, and the Palace
Morocco is a country with a "defused" political game: Elections do not play their usual role in democracies of allowing citizens to choose among competing agendas for policy and governance.
January 2008, Volume 19, Issue 1
Sierra Leone: A Vote for Better Governance
Five years after the close of a horrifying civil war, Sierra Leone held the freest elections in its history. Voters turned out the party that had overseen the war's end, blaming it for having mishandled governance since then.
October 2007, Volume 18, Issue 4
Nigeria’s Muddled Elections
The failure of the elections has been partly mitigated by the hope of judicial review of electoral malfeasance, the stabilizing ingenuity of ethno-regional power-sharing, and renewed national discussions of electoral reforms.
October 2007, Volume 18, Issue 4
The Quest for Self-Rule in Tibet
This article assesses the historical record and current practice to argue that a form of autonomy that is appropriately grounded in China’s Constitution and international human rights practice may offer a path out of the current dispute.
July 2007, Volume 18, Issue 3
Exchange: The Sequencing “Fallacy”
Countries taking the initial steps from dictatorship toward electoral politics are especially prone to civil and international war. Yet states endowed with coherent institutions—such as a functioning bureaucracy and the elements needed to construct a sound legal system—have often been able to democratize peacefully and successfully. Consequently, whenever possible, efforts to promote democracy should try…
July 2007, Volume 18, Issue 3
The Democracy Barometers (Part I): The Rise of Populism and the Left in Latin America
By world standards, Latin Americans ideologically are slightly to the right. But their attitudes are moving leftward, a trend with potential implications for democratic stability in the region.
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
The Challenge of Closely Fought Elections
Closely fought elections are often fraught with conflict, splitting societies asunder. How can democracy survive such rough and close contests?
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
India’s Unlikely Democracy: Six Decades of Independence
By most theoretical accounts, Indian democracy should not even exist. Yet, despite serious challenges, it shows signs of enduring and even deepening.
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
A Wake-Up Call in Afghanistan
Much has been achieved both in the war against the Taliban and in the larger struggle to create a democratic Afghanistan, but dire problems remain.
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
The 2006 Freedom House Survey: The Pushback Against Democracy
Although the overall state of democracy in the world differed little from that in 2005, a series of worrisome trends seem to be contributing to a stagnation of freedom.
January 2007, Volume 18, Issue 1
The Mexican Standoff: The Mobilization of Distrust
Mexico’s system of electoral governance and dispute settlement worked reasonably well, yet it created too much noise and too many needless invitations to distrust. The failures observed were less those of institutions than of actors. The loser reacted deplorably, but none of those involved acted in a manner beyond reproach.
January 2007, Volume 18, Issue 1
The Perpetual Crises of Democracy
Democracy is and always will be in some kind of crisis, for it is constantly redirecting its citizens’ gaze from a more or less unsatisfactory present toward a future of still unfulfilled possibilities.
October 2006, Volume 17, Issue 4
A “Left Turn” in Latin America? The Urgent Need for Labor Law Reform
Latin America must find a way to include its newly urbanized informal workers in more regular channels of economic and political participation. Updating outmoded labor laws is a key to accomplishing this task.