2375 Results
January 2011, Volume 22, Issue 1
Hugo Chávez has been running a bounded competitive-authoritarian regime for some time, but its ability to compete is now slipping. Will this tend to make it less authoritarian—or even more so?
July 2006, Volume 17, Issue 3
Authoritarian regimes around the world hold elections and manipulate them every step of the way. How do we understand and work around the challenges these regimes pose to what should be a clean and democratic electoral process?
October 1998, Volume 9, Issue 4
Read the full essay here.
April 2025, Volume 36, Issue 2
Democratic backsliding is usually seen as something driven by presidents, but under certain circumstances elected legislatures can cause it, too. Legislative hegemony is a growing danger.
The Journal of Democracy is the world’s leading publication on the theory and practice of democracy. Since its first appearance in 1990, it has engaged both activists and intellectuals in critical discussions of the problems of and prospects for democracy around the world. Today, the Journal is at the center of debate on the major…
October 2013, Volume 24, Issue 4
Despite losing the popular vote, Malaysia’s long-ruling Barisan Nasional triumphed again in the country’s 2013 elections, disappointing an emboldened opposition that had high hopes after a strong performance in 2008.
October 2002, Volume 13, Issue 4
Politics in the Arab Middle East is often a matter of powerholders first liberalizing — and then "deliberalizing" — public life in order to first maintain their rule. But this "survival strategy" is a dead end.
July 2002, Volume 13, Issue 3
While many experts recommend postponing democratization pending the rise of a middle class, a directly political strategy may well be better.
October 2001, Volume 12, Issue 4
Ukraine has secured its independence, but remains troubled by slow growth, corruption, and an overly strong presidency.
October 2001, Volume 12, Issue 4
In the wake of the East Asian economic crisis of 1997-98, how has the appeal to “Asian Values” fared as a rhetorical prop for undemocratic rule?
January 1995, Volume 6, Issue 1
A review of The Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia, 1917-1991, by Martin Malia and Modern Tyrants: The Power and Prevalence of Evil in Our Age, by Daniel Chirot.
July 2005, Volume 16, Issue 3
Excerpts from: a joint statement to the Kyrgyz nation issued by the presidents of Georgia and Ukraine; the Madrid Agenda; a letter issued by five hundred Chinese human rights and democracy activists; the third UN Development Programme Arab Human Development Report; a secret audio audio message recorded by Thich Quang Do, deputy leader of the…
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
January 2022, Volume 33, Issue 1
President Kais Saied’s power grab has crushed Tunisian democracy, returning the country to the old playbook of Arab dictators past and present.
October 2004, Volume 15, Issue 4
Slobodan Milošević fell in the fall of 2000 after he tried to pervert national election results. He had tampered with elections before and survived. What made 2000 different, and what are the lessons to be learned from it?
January 2003, Volume 14, Issue 1
Excerpts from: “A Republican Manifesto: A Model for Overcoming Iran’s Political Deadlock” by Iranian investigative journalist Akbar Ganji; opening remarks and acceptance speeches from the fifteenth annual W. Averell Harriman Democracy Awards; “Community of Democracies statement on Terrorism.”
July 2024, Volume 35, Issue 3
If democracies did a better job “delivering” for their citizens, so the thinking goes, people would not be so ready to embrace antidemocratic alternatives. Not so. This conventional wisdom about democratic backsliding is seldom true and often not accurate at all.
Less than a year after a bitter loss, the opposition dealt Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ruling party their largest electoral defeat in decades. The question is whether they can now build on their success.
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Excerpts from: Charter 08, an open letter calling for a political system in China based on human rights and democracy; an ECOWAS statement condemning the military coup in Guinea; the inauguration speech of new Ghanaian president John Evans; statements issued commending the conduct of Iraq’s January 31 provincial elections.
