3151 Results
April 2014, Volume 25, Issue 2
After four years of sharing power with the opposition, Zimbabwe’s longtime president Robert Mugabe and his party claimed a huge victory in the 2013 elections. What accounts for the opposition’s stunning electoral decline?
October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
Parliamentary elections in 2008 secured the MPLA's hegemony and decimated the opposition, while paradoxically increasing the government's legitimacy.
January 2005, Volume 16, Issue 1
Like many other world-government bodies, the International Monetary Fund is a necessarily nondemocratic organitzation that cannot help but have an impact on democracy’s prospects in poorer countries.
October 2014, Volume 25, Issue 4
Democracy’s fortunes rose in Africa in the 1990s, but more recently have been in retreat. The forces of democratic resurgence remain in play, however, as a look at the key case of Nigeria suggests.
January 2010, Volume 21, Issue 1
In the twenty years since 1989, acute excitement over democratic transition and consolidation gave way to symptoms of “democracy fatigue” and elite exhaustion; successful economic transition away from state socialism fell victim to a crisis of the free-market model; and the EU’s transformative power has reached its geopolitical limits. The nations of Central and Eastern…
January 2006, Volume 17, Issue 1
Burundi's leaders are learning to embrace a culture of discussion and consensus that offers a way out of the abyss of civil war.
January 2006, Volume 17, Issue 1
Measurements that rely on perceptions of corruption can be misleading. What is needed is a method of gauging how well a country has set itself up to defend public integrity systematically and in all its dimensions.
April 2004, Volume 15, Issue 2
Weak or failed states are at the root of many serious global problems, from poverty and AIDS to drug trafficking and terrorism, to the failure of democratic government itself. State-building must become a priority for the world community.
October 2024, Volume 35, Issue 4
When an epidemic of Koran burnings swept Denmark and Sweden, the Danish government criminalized the practice. It is a misguided response that misses the opportunity to protect both minorities and the right to free speech.
July 2004, Volume 15, Issue 3
Creative Hindu responses to modern challenges are a crucial part of the democratic story in India, yet Hindus must guard against those who would politicize Hindu identity.
October 2001, Volume 12, Issue 4
Except for the Baltic states, the countries of the former Soviet Union may be less democratic today than in the last years of the USSR.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
Russia’s ruling elite have used corruption not only to line their own pockets, but also as a tool of domestic political control and global power projection.
April 2014, Volume 25, Issue 2
A review of Constitutional Change and Democracy in Indonesia by Donald L. Horowitz.
October 2024, Volume 35, Issue 4
Majoritarian nationalism is a defining feature of our time. If we are to resist ethnonationalist leaders trying to recast our societies into imagined majorities, we must revise our conception of democracy and the exclusion inherent in majority rule.
October 2023, Volume 34, Issue 4
Despite worry of an authoritarian resurgence, the vast majority of “third wave” democracies are enduring. Democracy, buoyed by economic growth and urbanization, is outperforming most people’s expectations or fears.
July 2022, Volume 33, Issue 3
Xi Jinping undercut China’s political norms to cement his own power and brand of rule. But in so doing the “Chairman of Everything” has introduced new vulnerabilities for the regime.
January 2020, Volume 31, Issue 1
To grasp why post-Mao China’s remarkable economic development has not aided democracy, we must look first at the policies of top Chinese leaders.
April 2015, Volume 26, Issue 2
Burma’s troubled transition is imperiled by the reluctance of the military to loosen its grip. What lessons can the Burmese learn from other East Asian countries that have emerged from military rule?
July 2014, Volume 25, Issue 3
Russia has witnessed a growing rapprochement between some of its nationalists and some of its democrats, but this trend is threatened by divisions over the annexation of Crimea.
October 2010, Volume 21, Issue 4
Latin America’s hard-won democratic gains must be defended by addressing he economic disparities fueling a drift toward populism.
