1571 Results
July 2012, Volume 23, Issue 3
One of the most striking and unexpected features of the recent demonstrations in Russia was the partnership of liberals and nationalists in the ranks of the protesters.
January 2016, Volume 27, Issue 1
Although the leading authoritarian regimes are today integrated in many ways into the global system, they have not become more like the democracies; instead, they have been devising policies and practices aimed at blocking democracy’s advance.
April 2004, Volume 15, Issue 2
Orthodoxy’s difficult historical experiences have made it ambivalent toward democatic pluralism, but that may be changing, with believers in established democacies leading the way.
July 2025, Volume 36, Issue 3
Restoring liberalism after illiberalism is no easy task: Leaders face hard choices between acting quickly and effectively while maintaining a commitment to democratic procedure. Worse, their illiberal opponents stand to benefit either way.
October 2014, Volume 25, Issue 4
Reports on elections in Afghanistan, Colombia, Indonesia, Libya, Mauritania, Slovenia, and Turkey.
July 2004, Volume 15, Issue 3
Vladimir Putin aspires to be a classic authoritarian modernizer, but in today's globalized world Russia faces challenges that bureaucratic centralization and a traditional strong hand cannot meet.
The danger is greater than the rise of far-right parties. In fact, there is a risk that in their eagerness to contain the far right, European leaders may do greater damage to democracy itself.
July 2006, Volume 17, Issue 3
Reports on elections in Belarus, Benin, Chad, Columbia, Comoros, Czech Republic, El Salvador, Fiji, Hungary, Peru, Samoa, São Tomé and Príncipe, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Thailand, and Ukraine.
October 2004, Volume 15, Issue 4
Reports on elections in Indonesia, Lithuania, Mongolia, Philippines, and Serbia.
October 2019, Volume 30, Issue 4
Reports on elections in Afghanistan, Guatemala, Madagascar, Mauritania, Nauru, Tunisia, Tuvalu, Ukraine.
April 1999, Volume 10, Issue 2
Reports on elections in the Central African Republic, El Salvador, Estonia, Grenada, Guinea, Kazakhstan, and Nigeria.
January 2023, Volume 34, Issue 1
Featuring Canadian deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland’s remarks on defending democracy; a letter by Chinese and Hong Kong socialists on China’s “zero-covid” protests; Shervin Hajipour’s song “Baraye,” the unofficial anthem of the protests in Iran; Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen’s remarks on shoring up democratic resilience in Taiwan and globally; and Gambian human-rights lawyer Fatou Bensouda’s…
October 2024, Volume 35, Issue 4
Alongside democratic backsliding is another, more pernicious phenomenon: dictatorial drift, where “soft” authoritarian regimes are opting to become highly repressive dictatorships. The West must develop new strategies to defend democracy across the globe.
October 2017, Volume 28, Issue 4
Read the full essay here. “The pursuit of national glory,” which M. Steven Fish counts among the features of Vladimir Putin’s “populism,” is emerging as central to the regime’s legitimation. Unlike previous instances of patriotic mobilization (around the Second Chechen War and the 2008 Georgia war), the current one appears to have evolved into a…
April 2006, Volume 17, Issue 2
From Putin's Russia to Chávez's Venezuela, regimes that claim to be democracies but act like autocracies are emerging as a major long-term threat to freedom.
April 2015, Volume 26, Issue 2
Even if Vladimir Putin were to lose his grip on office, the “Russian system” might only wind up exchanging one form of personalized power for another in its endless search for self-perpetuation.
October 2017, Volume 28, Issue 4
Under Vladimir Putin, Russia’s ruling class again claims to represent a superior alternative to liberal democracy. How can we theorize this regime? Putinism is a form of autocracy that is conservative, populist, and personalistic. Its conservatism means that Putinism prioritizes maintaining the status quo and avoiding instability. Conservatism also overlaps with Putinism’s populism in crowd-pleasing broadsides against gay rights and feminism, but gives…
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…
