1207 Results
January 2016, Volume 27, Issue 1
Old-fashioned military coups and blatant election-day fraud are becoming mercifully rarer these days, but other, subtler forms of democratic regression are a growing problem that demands more attention.
July 2015, Volume 26, Issue 3
Why do significant numbers of people, after gaining the right to choose their leaders via free and fair elections, vote for political parties with deep roots in dictatorship, and how do such parties affect the consolidation of democracy?
January 2015, Volume 26, Issue 1
The failure to establish modern, well-governed states has been the Achilles heel of recent democratic transitions, as democratization without state modernization can actually lower the quality of governance.
January 2015, Volume 26, Issue 1
Can democracy prosper when democratic countries are in geopolitical retreat? History cautions against the notion that democracy will inevitably prevail.
January 2015, Volume 26, Issue 1
Rather than being in decline, democracy is in crisis due to the gap between the democratic ideal and how democracy is actually being practiced. It will survive by transitioning into a new, as yet unknown, form.
January 2015, Volume 26, Issue 1
From small beginnings, democracy aid has become a sizeable enterprise. Today it is beset by problems, however, as it must operate in a less friendly environment. Hard decisions will need to be made to maintain its relevance.
July 2014, Volume 25, Issue 3
Regime change will always be a feature of political life, but we are unlikely to see again transitions to democracy on the scale of the “third wave.”
July 2014, Volume 25, Issue 3
The hegemonic-party systems of Taiwan and Mexico began to loosen in the 1980s, eventually yielding to democracy. Malaysia’s ruling party, by contrast, has tightened the reins of power in the face of increasing opposition.
July 2014, Volume 25, Issue 3
In order to mark democracy’s progress and to inform policy, we need to be able to measure democracy in sufficient detail. The V-Dem Project aims to deliver exactly such a tool.
January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
How should we define the stages of democracy and their sequencing? Although some scholars argue that the rule of law should come first, today it should be viewed as the final piece of the liberal-democratic puzzle.
October 2012, Volume 23, Issue 4
Modern democracy was born in the era of print, and the press has been one of its essential institutions. With the decline of newspapers and the rise of new media, what are the implications for democracy?
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.
October 2012, Volume 23, Issue 4
A political system in which power is formally divided among ethnic or sectarian groups may seem like a good idea in conflict-ridden societies, but it bears a high price and makes true democratic transition harder to achieve.
October 2011, Volume 22, Issue 4
Although the Arab revolts have a long way to go before they can be counted as gains for democracy, they do underline what is perhaps democracy’s greatest source of strength worldwide—its superior legitimacy.
April 2011, Volume 22, Issue 2
The past decade began at a high point for freedom but ended with freedom in peril. Yet the setbacks of the last five years do not outweigh the democratic gains of the last forty.
April 2011, Volume 22, Issue 2
Are laws guaranteeing citizens freedom of access to public information (FOI laws) among the most important democratic innovations of the last century?
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.
October 2010, Volume 21, Issue 4
Development specialists and democracy-support experts should recognize—and maximize—each other’s relative strengths and comparative advantages.
January 2010, Volume 21, Issue 1
A coauthor of the pathbreaking study Transitions from Authoritarian Rule reflects on the lessons that he has learned about democratic transition and consolidation since the publication of this work nearly 25 years ago.
January 2010, Volume 21, Issue 1
While we have witnessed many transitions to multiparty systems, it has proven much harder for countries to attain a genuine rule of law. We need to know more about the origins of the rule of law in order to promote it successfully today.
