
Drowning Democracy
Afghanistan taught us that a firehose of unaccountable aid can destroy a country’s democratic future. In Ukraine, we are making the same mistake all over again. | By Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili and Nataliia Shapoval
3163 Results
Afghanistan taught us that a firehose of unaccountable aid can destroy a country’s democratic future. In Ukraine, we are making the same mistake all over again. | By Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili and Nataliia Shapoval
A democratic recession has been sweeping the globe for more than two decades, and it’s picking up steam. What explains this alarming decline? In the April issue, leading scholars debate the root causes of democratic backsliding, and what can be done to stop it.
January 2020, Volume 31, Issue 1
Illiberalism can drive away a country’s young people, and with them the future.
Our struggle against the Soviet Union offers vital lessons for how to confront the aggressive totalitarian threat that Beijing now represents.
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
Despite sweeping political and constitutional changes in Africa, a notable feature of the ancien régime survives—the imperial presidency. African presidents may be term-limited, but they have not been tamed.
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. | By Fernanda Buril and Erica Shein
April 1994, Volume 5, Issue 2
Read the full essay here.
China’s recent protests marked a crucial milestone: The mainstream Chinese public, at home and abroad, finally spoke up for the Uyghurs and their plight.
Russia’s autocrat may be weakened, but his grip on power is greater than many people realize.
January 2007, Volume 18, Issue 1
Democracy is and always will be in some kind of crisis, for it is constantly redirecting its citizens’ gaze from a more or less unsatisfactory present toward a future of still unfulfilled possibilities.
The country’s outgoing president is determined to bulldoze Mexico’s judicial system. His attack on the rule of law is even worse than most people realize.
Chinese citizens from Urumqi to Shanghai took to the streets, blank sheets of white paper in hand, to denounce the CCP and call for change. Xi Jinping’s repression and zero-covid lockdowns have united the public in empathy and anger. | Guoguang Wu
April 2002, Volume 13, Issue 2
A new research project suggests that federalism enhances the ability of regimes to accommodate territorially based minorities. Federal systems, except when imposed by an outside power, significantly help to preserve the peace.
January 2008, Volume 19, Issue 1
Findings from the Arab Barometer say little about whether there are likely to be transitions to democracy in the Arab world in the years ahead, but they do offer evidence that citizens' attitudes and values are not the reason that authoritarianism has persisted.
July 2003, Volume 14, Issue 3
The decaying trajectory of democratization in South Africa represents a kind of settlement failure, resulting for the main parties in the transition having come to the table with incompatible cultural paradigms of negotiation.
January 1998, Volume 9, Issue 1
Reports on elections in Argentina, Bosnia-Herzegovina (Republika Srpska), Cameroon, Ecuador, Honduras, Jordan, Morocco, Poland, Slovenia, Yugoslavia (Montenegro), Yugoslavia (Serbia).
October 2018, Volume 29, Issue 4
Public-opinion data from Pew Research Center show that global support for representative democracy is widespread, but often thin. Amid rising economic anxiety, cultural unease, and political frustration, citizens are increasingly open to alternative systems of government.
January 2019, Volume 30, Issue 1
There is a growing sense today that democrats worldwide are in a race against time to prevent cyberspace from becoming an arena for surveillance, control, and manipulation.
April 2010, Volume 21, Issue 2
Although the overall state of freedom in the world has clearly improved over the last two decades, more recent trends are worrisome. In 2009, declines in freedom outnumbered gains for the fourth consecutive year.