2772 Results
April 2021, Volume 32, Issue 2
The swelling pessimism about democracy’s future is unwarranted. Values focused on human freedom are spreading throughout the world, and suggest that the future of self-government is actually quite bright.
January 2020, Volume 31, Issue 1
Iran is in the midst of an ideological crisis. Growing numbers of Iranians are rejecting the religious underpinnings of the Supreme Leader’s rule, and turning their backs on the Islamic Republic. The regime’s only response is harsher repression—a response that will deepen the anger that is bringing everyday Iranians out into the streets.
If liberal norms and institutions are to prevail, they need to be defended from the left and the right. | By Ghia Nodia
Ukraine doesn’t just deserve EU membership. Its bid could revive and reunify Europe. March 2022 By Oxana Shevel and Maria Popova President Volodymyr Zelensky submitted Ukraine’s formal application to join the EU on 28 February 2022, four days after the Russian invasion began. Zelensky asked for immediate membership under a new special procedure. Many see…
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
India’s Constitution has long seemed stable, but the rise of an ethnic, absolute, and opaque state is changing the constitutional order in momentous and disturbing ways.
January 2025, Volume 36, Issue 1
Many pundits cry for a negotiated settlement to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. But they misunderstand Vladimir Putin’s motives. The only just end to the war will be in the trenches, not at the bargaining table.
Across the globe, the people who run our elections are being undermined, targeted, and attacked. Here is how to shore them up—and protect democratic institutions, too.
January 2025, Volume 36, Issue 1
Democracy’s unique, flexible, and substantial resources make it better than authoritarianism at confronting climate change.
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
Opposition movements often boycott rigged polls rather than risk legitimizing an autocrat. It is usually a mistake. Here is the playbook for how one opposition seized the advantage.
January 2022, Volume 33, Issue 1
The Afghan republic’s destruction was sewn into its founding. The international community’s missteps are more responsible for its failure than the country’s supposedly endemic corruption.
April 2015, Volume 26, Issue 2
A review of Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia? by Karen Dawisha.
April 2023, Volume 34, Issue 2
Vladimir Putin’s reputation as a skillful leader was buoyed by years of economic good fortune. But when his regime faltered, his rule quickly descended into the fearful, repressive, and paranoid state we see today.
April 2013, Volume 24, Issue 2
Evidence of the evil perpetrated in North Korea’s prison camps continues to emerge, as most vividly highlighted by Blaine Harden’s Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West.
January 2024, Volume 35, Issue 1
Autocrats have found a new way to turn citizens against liberal democracy: convincing them that LGBTIQ rights, granted and protected in much of the West, pose a threat to their nation and its values.
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.
April 2025, Volume 36, Issue 2
Ukraine versus Russia is a modern David versus Goliath conflict that matters not only for the future of Ukraine, but for that of democracy itself.
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
A decade ago, Arab peoples stood up and sought to replace their rulers with a more democratic political project. But Arab autocrats have a project of their own. Can the people gain ground in the struggle for self-government, or will their rulers bear it away?
October 2019, Volume 30, Issue 4
For the second straight time, voters rejected a presidential candidate with ties to undemocratic Islamist forces, but victorious incumbent Joko Widodo felt compelled to tone down his support for liberalism.
July 2025, Volume 36, Issue 3
Restoring liberalism after illiberalism is no easy task: Leaders face hard choices between acting quickly and effectively while maintaining a commitment to democratic procedure. Worse, their illiberal opponents stand to benefit either way.
October 2024, Volume 35, Issue 4
An interview with Vladimir Kara-Murza; María Corina Machado on the Venezuelan opposition movement; a speech from Bangladesh’s new interim chief advisor; an open letter from Tunisian opposition candidates; a professor on the youth anticorruption protests in Uganda; and NATO’s seventy-fifth anniversary.
