April 2002, Volume 13, Issue 2
Election Watch
Reports on elections in Chile, Costa Rica, Gabon, The Gambia, Honduras, Madagascar, Singapore, the Solomon Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, and Zambia.
1799 Results
Sluicing on free choice ignorance sluice
Fall 1990, Volume 1, Issue 4
Election Watch
Reports on elections in: Ecuador, Mongolia, and São Tomé & Príncipe.
January 2019, Volume 30, Issue 1
How to Un-Rig an Election
A review of How to Rig an Election by Nic Cheeseman and Brian Klaas.
January 2011, Volume 22, Issue 1
A Russian Liberal’s Lament
A review of Lonely Power: Why Russia Has Failed to Become the West and the West Is Weary of Russia by Lilia Shevtsova.
Can Liberalism Be Saved?
Liberalism is being assailed from left and right, but it has not failed. In the Journal’s newest symposium, five authors grapple with questions of liberalism’s lasting relevance and its challenges for the future.
July 2015, Volume 26, Issue 3
Documents on Democracy
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 2012, Volume 23, Issue 1
Morocco: Outfoxing the Opposition
Morocco was not immune to the 2011 upheavals in the Arab world, but the country’s monarchy deftly managed the crisis through cosmetic constitutional reform.
July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3
India’s Democracy at 70: Growth, Inequality, and Nationalism
Of late, Indian democracy has been confronted with a new political economy. Strong economic growth over the last three decades has generated the world’s fourth-largest collection of dollar billionaires and the third-largest middle class, both for the first time in Indian history, while still leaving the single largest concentration of the poor behind. In a…
January 2007, Volume 18, Issue 1
Revolution Reconsidered
The recent "color revolutions" in the former Soviet Union should lead us to reassess the idea of revolution and also to consider the weaknesses of the concept of "democratic transition.
July 2007, Volume 18, Issue 3
China’s Long March to Freedom
China is gradually changing. In the coming years, the pursuit of individual dignity and human rights will increasingly come to the fore.
October 2006, Volume 17, Issue 4
Constitutional Courts: A Primer for Decision Makers
Courts empowered to overturn legislative acts have spread rapidly in recent years. If carefully designed and limited, constitutional courts may aid democratic consolidation, but if not, they can become objects of political strife, impediments to democracy, and bad influences on legal development.
April 2017, Volume 28, Issue 2
The End of the Postnational Illusion
With the advance of modernization, nationalism was supposed to fade away. Yet everywhere we look, even in advanced democracies, nationalism’s influence seems larger than ever. What did we get wrong?
October 2008, Volume 19, Issue 4
Georgia’s Year of Turmoil
A domestic political crisis began brewing in Georgia long before the current conflict with Russia. Since the Rose Revolution, the country has been troubled by flawed elections, a “superpresidency,” and a malleable constitution.
July 2016, Volume 27, Issue 3
25 Years After the USSR: What’s Gone Wrong?
A quarter-century after the Soviet breakup, democracy has hardly fared well across the vast Eurasian landmass. Why has this seemingly promising gain for freedom produced such disappointing results?
April 2016, Volume 27, Issue 2
The Puzzle of the Chinese Middle Class
Seymour Martin Lipset argued that economic development would enlarge the middle class, and that the middle class would support democracy. To what extent will this general proposition prove true of China?
January 2017, Volume 28, Issue 1
The Signs of Deconsolidation
Political scientists have long assumed that “democratic consolidation” is a one-way street, but survey evidence of declining support for democracy from across the established democracies suggests that deconsolidation is a genuine danger.
October 2007, Volume 18, Issue 4
Iran’s Resilient Civil Society: The Untold Story of the Fight for Human Rights
Observers who focus too much on elections have failed to grasp the maturation of Iranian civil society, even as hard-liners have come to dominate the government.
January 2003, Volume 14, Issue 1
Afghanistan’s Long Road to Reconstruction
To forestall a worst-case scenario, the U.S. and the world must make a deeper commitment to peacekeeping and decentralized government.
January 2016, Volume 27, Issue 1
Ethiopia: The 100% Election
The ruling EPRDF and its allies won every single seat in parliament in Ethiopia’s May 2015 elections, signaling a hardening of the regime’s authoritarian rule.
October 2017, Volume 28, Issue 4
The Kremlin Emboldened: What Is Putinism?
Under Vladimir Putin, Russia’s ruling class again claims to represent a superior alternative to liberal democracy. How can we theorize this regime? Putinism is a form of autocracy that is conservative, populist, and personalistic. Its conservatism means that Putinism prioritizes maintaining the status quo and avoiding instability. Conservatism also overlaps with Putinism’s populism in crowd-pleasing broadsides against gay rights and feminism, but gives…