Spring 1991, Volume 2, Issue 2
The Nations of the USSR
A review of Hidden Nations: The People Challenge the Soviet Union, by Nadia Diuk and Adrian Karatnycky.
3266 Results
The Miami Times Black Wall Street March 11 2025 article
Summer 1990, Volume 1, Issue 3
Mexico: Salinas and the PRI at the Crossroads
Read the full essay here.
Spring 1990, Volume 1, Issue 2
Stabilizing Latin Democracy
A review of Democracy in the Americas: Stopping the Pendulum, edited by Robert A. Pastor.
Winter 1990, Volume 1, Issue 1
Managing the Military
A review of Rethinking Military Politics: Brazil and the Southern Cone, by Alfred Stepan.
January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
Arab Democracy or Islamist Revolution?
Although Olivier Roy and others argue that current circumstances will push ascendant Islamist parties in a democratic direction, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood remains committed to the revolutionary goals that have animated it since its beginnings.
October 2019, Volume 30, Issue 4
The 2019 EU Elections: Moving the Center
The results of the May 2019 elections to the European Parliament—and particularly the growing influence of the populist radical right—reflect a deep transformation of European politics that can largely be traced to the “refugee crisis” of 2015–16.
January 2019, Volume 30, Issue 1
India Under Modi: The Establishment Overreacts
Charges that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party threaten liberal-democratic safeguards are best understood as the overheated reaction of an insular elite that is still struggling to come to terms with its democratic displacement from power.
October 2017, Volume 28, Issue 4
The Kremlin Emboldened: Paradoxes of Decline
Read the full essay here. The Russian system of personalized power is growing ever more dependent on the same strategies that proved useless in sustaining the USSR. While the system still has the potential to limp along, its survival tactics render the it progressively more dysfunctional. Among the circumstances weighing against the system’s survival are…
January 2015, Volume 26, Issue 1
Russia’s Political System: Imperialism and Decay
The system of personalized power that has long ruled Russia now faces a new crisis, and it is trying to avert decay through the reassertion of empire.
January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
Southeast Asia: In The Shadow of China
Given Southeast Asia’s relatively high level of socioeconomic development, we might expect it to be a showcase of democracy. Yet it is not. To grasp why, one must look to deeper factors of history and geography.
October 2012, Volume 23, Issue 4
The Opening in Burma: The Need for a Political Pact
The hardest work of the transition—negotiating political pacts—has not yet begun. Burma’s democrats must help to forge a system of mutual security that can allow democratization to proceed.
Why Ukraine Is Critical to Rebuilding Our Democratic Consensus
The case for liberal democracy remains powerful. It may get its biggest boost in the near term from success on the battlefields of Ukraine. | Marc F. Plattner
April 2013, Volume 24, Issue 2
Lessons from Latin America: The Rise of Rentier Populism
Latin America’s much-discussed political “left turn” has taken two very different forms. Why has the region’s commodities boom led some left-turn states to move toward “plebiscitarian superpresidentialism,” while others have resisted this temptation?
April 2013, Volume 24, Issue 2
The Freedom House Survey for 2012: Breakthroughs in the Balance
Although declines in freedom outnumbered gains yet again in 2012, the year was not without some significant progress, most notably in the case of Libya.
April 2023, Volume 34, Issue 2
The CCP After the Zero-Covid Fail
The regime’s ill-fated policy to eliminate covid from China spurred the largest protests in a generation. It also made Xi Jinping’s challenge of maintaining authoritarian control over Chinese society even harder.
July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3
The Real Lessons of the Interwar Years
Analogies with interwar Europe are often misdirected. In the 1920s and 1930s, regime breakdowns occurred in struggling new democracies, but established democratic systems exhibited remarkable endurance.
April 2015, Volume 26, Issue 2
The Authoritarian Resurgence: Forward to the Past in Russia
Even if Vladimir Putin were to lose his grip on office, the “Russian system” might only wind up exchanging one form of personalized power for another in its endless search for self-perpetuation.
April 2017, Volume 28, Issue 2
The 2016 U.S. Election: Can Democracy Survive the Internet?
Traditional intermediary institutions such as parties and the legacy media are not what they once were, and they are not coming back. What are the implications of new social media and digital-campaign techniques?
July 2012, Volume 23, Issue 3
The Transformation of the Arab World
The electoral triumph of Islamist parties has dampened the enthusiasm of democrats for the “Arab Spring.”
April 2020, Volume 31, Issue 2
The Freedom House Survey for 2019: The Leaderless Struggle for Democracy
In 2019, the global democratic recession deepened, while protest movements proliferated around the world, fighting largely without leaders or support from major democracies.