
How Maduro Survived
The Venezuelan dictator defied sanctions, international isolation, and massive protests. He appears to have a firmer footing than he’s had in years. Now what? | Will Freeman
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The Venezuelan dictator defied sanctions, international isolation, and massive protests. He appears to have a firmer footing than he’s had in years. Now what? | Will Freeman
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Like all contemporary nondemocratic systems, the Chinese system suffers from weak legitimacy at the level of regime type. The most likely form of transition for China remains the model of Tiananmen, when three elements came together: a robust plurality of disaffected citizens, a catalytic event, and a split in the leadership. Had China chosen the…
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
There is a future for democracy in Russia, but it may have to wait until the people begin to feel the problems created by the current system.
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
The holding of competitive elections in this vast, strife-torn country must count as a significant achievement, even though voters signaled their disaffection with the entire array of political elites that had been ruling them.
July 2005, Volume 16, Issue 3
For the Shi'ite majority and its senior religious leader, the January elections played out against the background of a longing for justice that has deep spiritual sources as well as more recent sociopolitical roots.
April 2005, Volume 16, Issue 2
Thanks to a disputed presidential election and a narrowly divided parliament, Taiwan's politics remains tense. Yet the worst of the conflicts that gripped the island seem to have eased, and the difficult political events of the last few years may have some beneficial effects after all.
October 2002, Volume 13, Issue 4
How well-founded are Western concerns that the nascent parliaments of Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain will be captured by antidemocratic Islamists and lead to the ‘Talibanization’ of the Gulf?
April 2000, Volume 11, Issue 2
With Austria’s and Switzerland’s leading political parties having “rigged the political marketplace” by forming Grand Coalitions, voters have turned to the radical right as the only available alternative.
October 2011, Volume 22, Issue 4
Across the Arab world, militaries have played a key role in determining whether revolts against dictatorship succeed or fail. What factors determine how and why “the guys with guns” line up the way they do?
January 2011, Volume 22, Issue 1
The financial crisis did not deal a fatal blow to any democracies, but it did hasten an erosion of the influence of the West. In the future, the balance of power among competing regime types may be decided by the emerging-market democracies.
January 2010, Volume 21, Issue 1
The 1989 revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe were the triumph of civic dignity over Leninism. The first decade of postcommunism saw the project of an open society strongly challenged by ethnocratic temptations. The most important new idea brought about by the revolutions of 1989 was the rethinking and the restoration of citizenship.
January 2003, Volume 14, Issue 1
Class politics is an ever more important reality, but the growth of capitalism is not likely to produce pressures for democratization.
October 2010, Volume 21, Issue 4
Efforts to do comparative research on political attitudes have been complicated by varying understandings of “democracy.” The Afrobarometer is exploring new techniques to overcome this difficulty.
January 2017, Volume 28, Issue 1
Prime Minister Theresa May on the U.K. vote to leave the European Union; former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright on Václav Havel; joint statement by U.S. representatives Peter J. Roskam (R-Ill.) and David Price (D-N.C.) on the threat of corruption.
Hundreds of thousands of Germans are taking to the streets in protest against the country’s far-right parties. Will it shift the tide or leave Germany further divided?
South Koreans have elected Lee Jae-myung president. Will he be a pragmatic democratic reformer? Or will he continue the polarizing political warfare of recent South Korean leaders?
April 2024, Volume 35, Issue 2
The liberal emphasis on unhindered mobility comes with costs, particularly for those unable to leave.
July 2019, Volume 30, Issue 3
Within Ukraine, Russia’s 2014 invasion has generated unprecedented pressures to impose restrictions on speech. While international norms allow some censorship during wartime, some of Ukraine’s new media and cultural policies raise risks not only for its democracy, but for its security as well.
October 2012, Volume 23, Issue 4
Although politics today is in critical condition—some even say it is dying—it is all the more important to revive it.