2726 Results
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Read the full essay here. Some of the many China stories to attract attention recently have involved NIMBY (Not in My Backyard) protests by largely middle class crowds gathering to demand a greater say in urban development plans. This article argues that such protests a) are a significant addition to the already complex landscape of…
July 2024, Volume 35, Issue 3
Voters in democratic countries often favor political candidates whose relatives were in office before them. When citizens can choose anyone, why in so many of the world’s democracies do they opt for political dynasties?
October 2008, Volume 19, Issue 4
Once hailed as liberators, Zimbabwe’s ruling party now clings to power through violent repression. How did the country’s founding father become its dictator, and what patterns in his party’s past foretold such an outcome?
July 2008, Volume 19, Issue 3
Emerging from one of the world’s most notorious failed states, Somaliland has become an oasis of relative democratic stability in the troubled Horn of Africa. What does its story teach us about democratic state-building?
July 2007, Volume 18, Issue 3
The Editors’ introduction to the first of two clusters on “The Democracy Barometers.”
October 2006, Volume 17, Issue 4
The Belarusian presidential election of March 2006 appeared to be an exercise in meaninglessness, while the protests against manipulation by the Lukashenka regime seemed a study in futility. But appearances can deceive.
July 2006, Volume 17, Issue 3
Authoritarian regimes around the world hold elections and manipulate them every step of the way. How do we understand and work around the challenges these regimes pose to what should be a clean and democratic electoral process?
April 2006, Volume 17, Issue 2
Afghanistan’s electoral system is both unusual and unsuited to the country’s political circumstances. How was it chosen and what are its effects on the country’s politics?
April 2006, Volume 17, Issue 2
For decades, Japan and Taiwan elected their legislatures using the single nontransferable vote. Recently, however, both countries adopted new electoral systems. What explains this trend?
April 2006, Volume 17, Issue 2
The 2005 elections were marked by massive fraud, but the democratic world mostly looked the other way. Azerbaijani society remains receptive to democracy, but the regime clearly has other plans—and will soon have massive oil wealth to fund them.
January 2006, Volume 17, Issue 1
There is a widespread desire for democracy among the Iraqi public, but when it comes to the roles of religion, ethnicity, and gender equality in Iraq's new democracy, attitudes are more varied.
January 2006, Volume 17, Issue 1
Strategies based on transition pacts that reduce rulers' risks and cushion their retreat from total power may be the most promising route to democracy in the Arab world.
April 2005, Volume 16, Issue 2
Juan Linz’s 1990 critique of presidentialism in these pages was based largely on the Latin American experience. In the last few years, however, four new Asian democracies have encountered presidential crises. Does Linz’s work hold the secret to what has been ailing these regimes?
January 2005, Volume 16, Issue 1
Like many other world-government bodies, the International Monetary Fund is a necessarily nondemocratic organitzation that cannot help but have an impact on democracy’s prospects in poorer countries.
April 2004, Volume 15, Issue 2
That modern democracy first arose with the ambit of Western Christianity is far from an accident. Today, the major Christain communions largely support democracy, even while necessarily retaining the right to criticize democratic decisions in the name fo religious truth claims.
October 2003, Volume 14, Issue 4
The EU represents an opportunity not only to fashion a postnational welfare state capable of responding to a postnational economy, but to lay a groundwork that will ultimately make possible a global domestic policy.
April 2003, Volume 14, Issue 2
Liberal Islam remains marginal because it is politically suppressed; in truth, it represents the predominant political hopes of Muslims around the world.
April 2003, Volume 14, Issue 2
If they are to understand Islam authentically and to embrace the modern world freely, Muslims must take a new attitude toward their traditions of interpretation.
January 2003, Volume 14, Issue 1
Class politics is an ever more important reality, but the growth of capitalism is not likely to produce pressures for democratization.
January 2003, Volume 14, Issue 1
Political renewal is contending with a process of political decay that has yet to reach an end.
