2675 Results
July 2018, Volume 29, Issue 3
For countries emerging from communism, the post-1989 imperative to “be like the West” has generated discontent and even a “return of the repressed,” as the region feels old nationalist stirrings and new demographic pressures.
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
Democracy’s meaning has always been contested. Letting that struggle become a battle between existential foes risks upending the whole democratic project.
Police in Manila arrested former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte on an ICC warrant for crimes against humanity. His daughter, Vice-President Sara Duterte, was impeached a month ago. The following Journal of Democracy essays chart the twists and turns of Philippine politics and the long-running feud between the Duterte and Marcos political clans.
The May 2025 Philippine midterms are just the latest chapter in a yearslong feud between the Marcos and Duterte clans. These essays below plot the twists and turns of the political drama, and explain why it’s really a diversion from meaningful democratic reform.
October 2005, Volume 16, Issue 4
Nepal’s people find themselves caught in an ugly struggle between two antidemocratic ideologies—royal absolutism and Maoism. What happened?
April 2024, Volume 35, Issue 2
A review of How to Win an Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler, by Peter Pomerantsev.
July 2018, Volume 29, Issue 3
Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party has used its two-thirds majority in parliament to change the constitution, erase checks and balances, and make the electoral system even more majoritarian.
January 1999, Volume 10, Issue 1
On the evening of 20 November 1998, Galina Vasilievna Starovoitova was shot to death outside her St. Petersburg apartment. She was the sixth member of the Russian Duma to have been murdered since that body’s creation in 1993. Most observers agree that this was a political assassination. Starovoitova was a tireless, persistent voice for freedom,…
July 2020, Volume 31, Issue 3
A review of MBS: The Rise to Power of Mohammed bin Salman, by Ben Hubbard.
April 2022, Volume 33, Issue 2
The country’s opposition beat an authoritarian incumbent by unifying, organizing its supporters, and contesting every election no matter the odds. Can the strategy be applied elsewhere?
July 2022, Volume 33, Issue 3
Does the author of the nineteenth-century classic, Democracy in America, still matter?
April 2001, Volume 12, Issue 2
Although friendly to business, Singapore’s government represses dissent and is far from transparent in its management of public funds. A leading dissident chronicles his struggle for greater openness.
Authoritarians are developing new tools to project their malign influence across the globe. The world of sports can teach us a lot about the games they play.
Fall 1991, Volume 2, Issue 4
Excerpts from: speeches and declarations issued in the course of the failed USSR coup; speeches presented at the First Ibero-American Summit; Charter 91, signed by more than 100 Iraqi expatriates.
January 2019, Volume 30, Issue 1
Not so long ago, the internet was being lauded as a force for greater freedom and democracy. With the rise of intrusive and addictive social media, however, a discomfiting reality has set in.
July 2023, Volume 34, Issue 3
People obsess over where Russia’s democracy went wrong. The truth is it did not fail: Russia’s democratic transition never got off the starting blocks.
April 2001, Volume 12, Issue 2
In postindustrial societies, class is less important as a source of party cleavage. With the European left embracing a market-friendly “third way,” political divisions in Europe are increasingly resembling those in the United States.
July 1993, Volume 4, Issue 3
Excerpts from: speeches from the three recipients of the National Endowment for Democracy’s biennial Democracy Award; the inaugural address of the New Civic Forum, an Egyptian NGO; “Enhancing the Effectiveness of the Principle of Periodic and Genuine Elections”, a UN resolution; the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Moscow communiqué.
Determined to project their influence abroad, authoritarian regimes are subverting international rules and norms while disguising their misdeeds. The easiest way to do this? Convince the world they are benign, upstanding members of the international community.
The government has spent billions preparing to host the 2022 World Cup. Never mind the abusive labor practices and human rights violations. It’s betting that your love of the “beautiful game” will make you more fond of this tiny Gulf state, too. | Sarath K. Ganji
