2434 Results
Election observers are the first line of defense for democratic rights and freedoms. The essays below highlight the importance of election monitoring, especially in highly polarized, autocratic settings, the dangers that observers face, and the repercussions of rigged contests.
After years of increasingly authoritarian rule, Tanzanian president Samia Suluhu Hassan was hailed as a democratic reformer. But as Dan Paget and Aikande Clement Kwayu write in the July issue of the JoD, the president is more performer than reformer, relying on theatrics to delay real reform while sharpening her tools of repression.
The CCP is engaged in a sprawling campaign to undermine democracy. Governments too often can be lumbering or weak in response. Look to civil society for the creativity and skill to keep the CCP on its heels.
Vladimir Putin may have imprisoned, tortured, and killed the brilliant opposition leader, but even now Navalny is a threat to the corrupt autocracy he has built.
The country’s military brass has a larger role governing Mexico than at any time in the past eighty years. It’s creating a dangerous dependency that won’t be easy to break. Can the generals be reined in?
Reports on elections in India, Marshall Islands, and Netherlands.
Reports on elections in Comoros, El Salvador, Senegal, and Tuvalu.
Democratic institutions, norms, and practices have been under threat in India. Should the country’s democracy fail, it will affect not only the lives of 1.4 billion Indians, but also democracy movements around the world.
Francis Fukuyama, one of the world’s leading scholars of democracy, has written for the Journal of Democracy more than two-dozen times over the last thirty-two years. The following essays include some of his most incisive, offering bold insights into the relationship between democracy, modernization, and political culture.
Ten years after the revolution, the lessons for protecting a budding democracy and guarding against violent extremism are clear.
If you want to understand why generals support a presidential power grab, then you need to understand the logic that motivates them. Why they leave the barracks — and what we must do to get them to stand down.
It is almost a year since the death of Alexei Navalny. The Russian opposition leader sought to channel Russian nationalism as a challenge to Putin’s autocracy. He gave everything in the fight.
The ANC lost its majority for the first time, but populist forces were held at bay.
“To understand why liberal democracy is on the defensive,” writes William A. Galston, “there is no better place to start than the 30th-anniversary edition of the Journal of Democracy.” Read more in Galston’s full article on “Liberal Democracy’s Threats From Within.”
William (“Will”) Dobson, most recently chief international editor at NPR, has held senior editorial posts at Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and Slate. He is author of The Dictator’s Learning Curve: Inside the Global Battle for Democracy (2012). Read the full press release here.
January 9, 2020
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has given the world’s democrats a renewed sense of unity and purpose. Putin’s reckless gamble may unexpectedly strengthen democracy in Europe and beyond.
El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele may be overwhelmingly popular, but he wasn’t going to let his electoral ambitions hinge on being well-liked. Instead, he rigged the playing field before the first vote was cast.
The popular Chinese-owned app is enabling Beijing to collect data on people nearly everywhere. Not only can such platforms track people’s preferences and whereabouts, but they give the Chinese government control over a powerful tool for shaping people’s worldview.
Across Latin America, former leaders are keeping a chokehold on their countries’ politics. It’s time their successors break free.
