3203 Results
July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3
Plebiscites have grown less common in recent decades in authoritarian and semi-authoritarian countries, even as the use of referendums in democracies has expanded. Despite their many shortcomings, referendums are, on balance, a mechanism for strengthening democracy.
July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3
Since Tanzania’s 2015 elections, rising repression and opposition protest have displaced an older dynamic of comparatively restrained and unchallenged dominance by the ruling party.
July 2016, Volume 27, Issue 3
The evidence presented by Foa and Mounk is troubling, but it does not mean that democracy is now in long-term decline.
January 2015, Volume 26, Issue 1
A survey of the region yields a patchwork result, with democratic governance faring well in some countries, at a standstill in others, and in the most worrisome cases actively eroding.
October 2014, Volume 25, Issue 4
Democracy’s fortunes rose in Africa in the 1990s, but more recently have been in retreat. The forces of democratic resurgence remain in play, however, as a look at the key case of Nigeria suggests.
July 2014, Volume 25, Issue 3
The hegemonic-party systems of Taiwan and Mexico began to loosen in the 1980s, eventually yielding to democracy. Malaysia’s ruling party, by contrast, has tightened the reins of power in the face of increasing opposition.
April 2010, Volume 21, Issue 2
The 2009 electoral victories of Indonesia’s incumbent president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) and his party reveal a growing sophistication among the electorate and a robust presidency, but also a dangerously weak, highly personalistic party system.
January 2010, Volume 21, Issue 1
The new electoral authoritarian regimes of the post–Cold War era have formally adopted the full panoply of liberal-democratic institutions. Rather than rejecting or repressing these institutions, they manipulate them.
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
There is no consensus about the nature of the political system in Moscow today. Yet how one understands the motivations propelling Russian policy abroad depends on how one understands its regime at home.
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Read the full essay here. Arguably a flawed democracy in the 1990s, Russia took a distinctly authoritarian turn under President Vladimir Putin from 2000 to 2008. The country now lives under a façade democracy that barely conceals the political and administrative dominance of a self-interested bureaucratic corporation. The regime manufactures consent by means of three…
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.
July 2005, Volume 16, Issue 3
If Iraq is to become the free and self-governing country that an overwhelming majority of its citizens want it to be, a "useable past" made accessible by historical memory will be vital.
October 2004, Volume 15, Issue 4
Law-based rule means a set of basic conditions that make civic life possible. A democratic rule of law requires all that and more, however.
April 2003, Volume 14, Issue 2
What can public-opinion research tell us about the staying power of democracy in the region? Has it passed the point of any possible return to authoritarianism?
July 2025, Volume 36, Issue 3
The political struggle between President Erdoğan and opposition leader Ekrem İmamoğlu is a fierce battle for the country’s democracy. But it goes deeper than that. It is also a struggle between Islamist and secularist visions of Turkey.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
In July 2017, Timor-Leste held its third parliamentary elections since independence. The party-centered campaign featured both enduring legacies of the revolutionary struggle and a distinct form of political patronage.
October 2004, Volume 15, Issue 4
Since most of the world’s sovereign states are now democracies, there is a growing scholarly focus on “good” or “better” democracy, and on how improvements can not only be measured, but encouraged.
October 2024, Volume 35, Issue 4
Immigration has changed the face of Western Europe. Yet mainstream political parties have largely ignored citizens’ concerns about what immigration means for their societies, leaving them ripe for far-right populists to exploit.
July 2005, Volume 16, Issue 3
What made the “color revolutions” of the early 2000s possible? There were 7 factors that allowed for these democratic breakthroughs. Today, Venezuela has 6 of them, and it may soon have the last one it needs.
October 2024, Volume 35, Issue 4
After thirty years of ANC dominance, the 2024 elections have ushered in multiparty politics in South Africa. Will the party’s centrist shift be enough to stop its descent, or is it destined to fracture further?
