3160 Results
July 1999, Volume 10, Issue 3
Excerpts from: a United Nations Commission on Human Rights resolution on the “Promotion of the Right to Democracy”; remarks by Aung San Suu Kyi, General Secretary of Burma’s National League for Democracy; the “Casablanca Declaration of the Arab Human Rights Movement”; Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo’s inaugural speech.
April 2013, Volume 24, Issue 2
A number of countries including Russia and post-Mubarak Egypt are taking aggressive steps to limit or stop foreign funds from flowing to domestic NGOs that promote human rights and democracy. What is driving this trend, how far will it go, and what can be done to counter it?
October 1997, Volume 8, Issue 4
Read the full essay here.
April 2010, Volume 21, Issue 2
Indonesia is widely lauded as a democratic success story for rolling back the military, keeping radical Islam in check, and institutionalizing democratic freedoms. But this success has had costs in terms of democratic quality.
April 2005, Volume 16, Issue 2
In three of the six democracies surveyed by the East Asia Barometer, a majority of respondents prefer democracy to its alternatives. In the other three, however, a lingering nostalgia for authoritarianism stands in the way of democratic consolidation.
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
The retirement of the country’s longest-serving prime minister leaves in place a “continuity administration,” and with it some troubling questions about whether liberal democracy’s “soft guardrails” are being eroded.
April 2005, Volume 16, Issue 2
The 2004 elections saw the defeat of the former communists who ruled Romania for most of the period since the fall of communism. Will the country's new, democratic, and pro-European government be able to break with the semi-authoritarian habits of its postcommunist predecessors?
October 2019, Volume 30, Issue 4
A trio of national ballotings in 2019 tell a tale of waxing authoritarianism in Southeast Asia, but things could have turned out worse.
July 2008, Volume 19, Issue 3
Read the full essay here. Political Islam is often cited as the key challenge to democratization in Muslim nations, but deep currents of authoritarianism may prove more of an obstacle. Traditions of monarchy, military rule, and weak civic institutions block the path of democratic transition throughout the Muslim world. Political Islam does of course present…
January 1993, Volume 4, Issue 1
Excerpts from: Organization of American States resolutions on the “presidential coup” in Peru; the report of the Argentinian National Commission of Disappeared Persons.
Since the internet’s arrival in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1994, digital technologies have provided a critical channel of communication for Chinese citizens. In an environment where speech and access to information are heavily restricted, the internet has enabled citizens to get uncensored news, speak their minds, and even organize protests. Over the…
July 2012, Volume 23, Issue 3
A review of The Lady and the Peacock: The Life of Aung San Suu Kyi by Peter Popham.
July 2014, Volume 25, Issue 3
In order to mark democracy’s progress and to inform policy, we need to be able to measure democracy in sufficient detail. The V-Dem Project aims to deliver exactly such a tool.
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
Excerpts from: an open letter to Russian president Vladimir Putin in response to the decision to close the Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship; a message delivered by Democratic Republic of the Congo president Joseph Kabila acknowledging his victory in the 2006 elections.
July 2013, Volume 24, Issue 3
The left-populist authoritarianism that is taking hold across a swath of Latin America bears many resemblances to the rightist populism that was once widespread in the region. There are signs, however, that the leftist variant will be an even bigger problem for liberal democracy. Listen to the podcast.
April 2019, Volume 30, Issue 2
China’s 1989 democracy movement was brutally suppressed, but a former student leader argues that it also planted the seeds for the growth of Chinese civil society and for future democratization.
April 2021, Volume 32, Issue 2
While many blamed President John Magufuli for throwing the country off its democratizing track, the truth is that the party that has ruled Tanzania for six decades has always been authoritarian.
October 2011, Volume 22, Issue 4
Singapore has long been known for combining economic development with strict limits on political opposition. But its 2011 parliamentary elections suggest that it is moving toward “competitive authoritarianism.”
October 2007, Volume 18, Issue 4
The populist backlash against corruption, the CEE transition-era elites, and the liberal consensus has led to a democratic crisis, but does not portend systemic change.
April 2000, Volume 11, Issue 2
Excerpts from: Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s farewell remarks and remarks by his successor, Vladimir Putin; a summary of Chechen foreign minister Ilyas Ahmadov’s remarks at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute; a speech by East Timorese independence leader Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão; a victory speech by Chilean president Ricardo Lagos; a speech by Argentinian president Fernando de…
