2444 Results
January 2024, Volume 35, Issue 1
Separatists encounter a fundamental paradox: The very political flexibility that allows their aspirations to flourish in a democratic setting also provides the tools to snuff out their movements. It explains why they almost never succeed.
October 2023, Volume 34, Issue 4
AI will transform work and entire economies. The potential benefits also bring a dire risk of rising inequality and job losses. But the worst outcomes can still be avoided.
April 2023, Volume 34, Issue 2
The past year offered the brightest picture in almost two decades, as global improvements in freedom nearly equaled global declines. Is democracy poised for a comeback?
July 2022, Volume 33, Issue 3
Influence operations by the People’s Republic of China and its “united front” organs were exposed years ago, but civil society and Chinese-Australians were first in understanding how to counter them.
January 2022, Volume 33, Issue 1
The “democratic deconsolidation” thesis is overblown. Emancipative values continue to spread worldwide, and clearly point to brighter democratic days ahead.
July 2021, Volume 32, Issue 3
It is not easy to build a stable hybrid regime. Elected autocrats may try, but comparing Bolivia, Brazil, and Venezuela shows how difficult it is to succeed.
October 2020, Volume 31, Issue 4
When asked by presidents to intervene domestically for crime-fighting or civil-order purposes, Latin American militaries face a number of risks and have a degree of freedom to tailor their responses accordingly.
July 2020, Volume 31, Issue 3
Evo Morales lost the presidency in November 2019 due not to a coup, but to a citizen revolt. After his controversial bid for a fourth consecutive term, the opposition mobilized against him and his regime disintegrated.
April 2020, Volume 31, Issue 2
A grim narrative of the years since 1989 has buoyed Eastern and Central Europe’s populist parties in their rise to power. To win back voters, liberals must tell a more compelling story of the postcommunist era—and offer a stronger vision of the years to come.
January 2020, Volume 31, Issue 1
Lacking any ideas for shoring up Russian society, Putin has settled on picking a fight with Ukraine.
April 2019, Volume 30, Issue 2
Politicians increasingly are attacking central bankers—once viewed as bland, faceless technocrats—for wielding too much power.
January 2019, Volume 30, Issue 1
With its recent electoral turnover of power, Pakistan seemingly passed a milestone of democratic consolidation. But beneath the surface, power remains where it long has been—with the military.
October 2018, Volume 29, Issue 4
Long hailed as one of the region’s most vigorous democracies, this small Central American country has seen voters swing massively toward newcomers and away from the two traditionally dominant parties.
October 2018, Volume 29, Issue 4
Colombian voters turned against the architects of the peace accord ending the country’s decades-old internal war, while giving the presidency to a lieutenant of ex-president Uribe, the agreement’s leading opponent.
October 2018, Volume 29, Issue 4
A disconnect between Bolivia’s old party system and the country’s deeper social-cleavage structure led to a massive shift in politics there. What lessons might be drawn for other nations?
October 2018, Volume 29, Issue 4
Democracy is enduring in Latin America, but it cannot be said to be prospering. Illiberalism and polarization are rising. Yet core democratic institutions remain firmly in place, and therein lies hope.
October 2018, Volume 29, Issue 4
In Malaysia’s May 2018 general election, a grand bargain between ex–prime minister Mahathir Mohamad and reform leader Anwar Ibrahim produced a political earthquake that ended 61 years of rule by the United Malays National Organization (UMNO).
April 2018, Volume 29, Issue 2
Sophisticated technology could not keep Kenya’s August 2017 presidential election from leading to renewed ethnic tensions and a painful standoff from which the country appears only now to be emerging. What went wrong?
October 2017, Volume 28, Issue 4
Read the full essay here. “The pursuit of national glory,” which M. Steven Fish counts among the features of Vladimir Putin’s “populism,” is emerging as central to the regime’s legitimation. Unlike previous instances of patriotic mobilization (around the Second Chechen War and the 2008 Georgia war), the current one appears to have evolved into a…
July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3
Read the full essay here. When the authors of India’s Constitution took the extraordinarily bold step of establishing universal suffrage, thus giving the right to vote to all adult citizens, India became the world’s first large democracy to adopt universal adult suffrage from its very inception. We call India’s move “instant universal suffrage,” and distinguish…
