April 1995, Volume 6, Issue 2
Election Watch
Reports on elections in Bulgaria, Estonia, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Niger, Uzbekistan.
923 Results
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January 1997, Volume 8, Issue 1
Documents on Democracy
Excerpts from: Romanian presidential candidate Emil Constantinescu’s remarks; victory statement by Nicaraguan presidential candidate Arnoldo Alemán.
April 1997, Volume 8, Issue 2
Election Watch
Reports on elections in Chad, Gabon, Gambia, Madagascar, Pakistan, Russia (Chechen Republic), Singapore.
Winter 1990, Volume 1, Issue 1
Why the “Journal of Democracy”
The Journal of Democracy seeks to bridge some of these gaps. We hope that it will help to unify what is becoming a worldwide democratic movement. But like genuine democracy itself, the journal will be pluralistic. Its pages will be open to a wide variety of perspectives and shades of opinion, and it will seek…
January 2024, Volume 35, Issue 1
Documents on Democracy
Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi’s letter from prison; Russian artist Sasha Skochilenko’s final court statement; the Bletchley Declaration on AI safety and ethics; “An Open Letter to the Presidents of Africa” by Congolese hip hop artist Martial Pa’nucci; a letter from Guatemala’s indigenous ancestral and community authorities; a Chinese blogger remembers Peng Lifa.
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
How to Compete in Unfair Elections
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 2019, Volume 30, Issue 1
Illiberal Democracy and the Struggle on the Right
At present, the key struggle for the future of liberal democracy appears as if it will be unfolding among parties and thinkers on the right.
January 2022, Volume 33, Issue 1
Democracy’s Arc: From Resurgent to Imperiled
Whether democracy regains its footing will depend on how democratic leaders and citizens respond to emboldened authoritarians and the fissures within their own societies.
July 2022, Volume 33, Issue 3
How Viktor Orbán Wins
The case of Hungary shows how autocrats can rig elections legally, using legislative majorities to change the law and neutralize the opposition at every turn, no matter what strategy they adopt.
Putin Just Learned Why You Don’t Trust Mercenaries
The Russian autocrat forgot an age-old truth about working with common criminals and soldiers for hire. By Zoltan Barany June 2023 A wonderful gift for Ukraine. My first thought upon reading the news that Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner Group, had called for an armed rebellion was that this serious rupture within the Russian…
October 2018, Volume 29, Issue 4
Review Essay: Why Tunisia?
A review of Tunisia: An Arab Anomaly by Safwan M. Masri.
April 2025, Volume 36, Issue 2
Documents on Democracy
A Ukrainian human-rights lawyer on moral responsibility during war; Nilofar Shidmehr’s poem “Say Her Name: Mahsa Jina Amini”; a Cuban prodemocracy activist vows to never give up; Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya on Belarus’s sham election; a Zimbabwean journalist turns himself in to police; the frontlines of the protests in Georgia; and an open letter to Xi Jinping.
How Women Make the World Safe for Democracy
The suffragists imagined that a greater role for women in democratic politics would lead to a more peaceful world. Few realize how right they were. | Joslyn N. Barnhart and Robert F. Trager
April 2023, Volume 34, Issue 2
The Putin Myth
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 2023, Volume 34, Issue 2
Is Iran on the Verge of Another Revolution?
There have been numerous waves of protest against the country’s corrupt theocracy. This time is different. It is a movement to reclaim life. Whatever happens, there is no going back.
October 2021, Volume 32, Issue 4
How Authoritarians Win When They Lose
Turkey’s ruling party has developed a new tool: When its local candidates lose, it dismisses them and appoints its own choice under a guise that maintains the veneer of democracy. It is an autocratic innovation that may soon spread.
January 2024, Volume 35, Issue 1
Hindu Nationalism and the New Jim Crow
While the histories of white supremacy and Hindu supremacy are different, their political objectives are much the same. The BJP is forging a regime of exclusion and oppression as brutal as the Jim Crow South. Only India’s voters can reverse its advance.
Democracy’s Arc: From Resurgent to Imperiled (Expanded Edition)
This is the darkest moment for freedom in half a century. Whether democracy regains its footing will depend on how democratic leaders and citizens respond to emboldened authoritarians and the fissures within their own societies.
January 2010, Volume 21, Issue 1
Documents on Democracy
Excerpts from: Ayman Nour’s video message to the National Endowment for Democracy’s conference, “Middle Eastern Democrats and Their Vision of the Future”; Wang Lixiong’s speech accepting the Light of Truth Award; Ladan Boroumand’s speech accepting the Lech Wałęsa Prize; the “EU Agenda for Action”—the annex to the “Conclusions on Democracy Support in the EU’s External Relations”
January 2014, Volume 25, Issue 1
Election Watch
Reports on elections in Argentina, Azerbaijan, Cameroon, Chile, the Czech Republic, Georgia, Guinea, Honduras, Madagascar, Maldives, Mauritania, Nepal, Rwanda, Swaziland, and Tajikistan.