January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
Is Meritocracy Just?
A review of The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? by Michael J. Sandel.
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January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
A review of The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? by Michael J. Sandel.
July 2022, Volume 33, Issue 3
Volodymyr Zelensky is far more than a brave wartime leader. He began changing the tenor and direction of Ukrainian politics long before the people made him their president.
July 2022, Volume 33, Issue 3
Excerpts from: Journalist Lian Qingchuan’s reflections on the Shanghai lockdown; Evgenia Kara-Murza’s testimony before the UN Human Rights Council; independent expert assessment of Russian violations of the international Genocide Convention; Moldovan president Maia Sandu’s commencement address; Larry Diamond’s acceptance speech from the 2022 Democracy Service Medal award ceremony; U.S. president Ronald Reagan’s Westminster Address.
July 2025, Volume 36, Issue 3
Iran’s theocracy has waged a brutal campaign against its own citizens for years. Now that the Woman, Life, Freedom movement has stripped the regime of any legitimacy, the mullahs have had no response but to sharpen their instruments of repression.
January 2022, Volume 33, Issue 1
The Afghan republic’s destruction was sewn into its founding. The international community’s missteps are more responsible for its failure than the country’s supposedly endemic corruption.
October 2023, Volume 34, Issue 4
An expansive underworld of hidden wealth lies beneath the everyday economy. This stealth network of tax havens, secret trusts, and offshore accounts is weakening democratic institutions and fueling our worst enemies.
July 2018, Volume 29, Issue 3
For countries emerging from communism, the post-1989 imperative to “be like the West” has generated discontent and even a “return of the repressed,” as the region feels old nationalist stirrings and new demographic pressures.
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
Democracies are under stress, but they are not about to buckle. The erosion of norms and other woes do not spell democratic collapse. With incredibly few exceptions, affluent democracies will endure, no matter the schemes of would-be autocrats.
Our rising levels of inequality have put its ideals in crisis. These are the simple principles that can help bring it back from the edge. | Thomas F. Remington
January 2023, Volume 34, Issue 1
The Chinese Communist Party is deadly serious about its authoritarian designs, and it is bent on promoting them. It is time for the world’s democracies to get serious, too.
April 2021, Volume 32, Issue 2
The covid-19 pandemic nearly upended the U.S. election, but after a rocky primary season changes were made to save it. Alarmingly, however, a large portion of voters have rejected the result. The challenge of overcoming lies about a “rigged” election is great.
January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
Excerpts from: the speech of Maryam al-Khawaja accepting, on behalf of human-rights activists in Bahrain, the Democracy Courage Tribute; 14-year old Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai’s speech accepting the Civic Courage Award; Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili’s concession speech and opposition leader Bidzina’s statement clarifying his postelection call for Saakashvili to resign; the inaugural address of Mexican…
April 2021, Volume 32, Issue 2
The swelling pessimism about democracy’s future is unwarranted. Values focused on human freedom are spreading throughout the world, and suggest that the future of self-government is actually quite bright.
July 2022, Volume 33, Issue 3
The Kremlin wields food as a weapon and a shield against Western interference. But Putin’s push for food autarky could backfire, driving up prices and turning Russians against the regime.
October 2021, Volume 32, Issue 4
Excerpts from: Sergei Adamovich’s remarks on the death of Andrei Sakharov; Marjan Farsad’s “Moonlight”; joint letter for a global moratorium on surveillance-technology sales; Zambian president Haikande Hichilema’s inaugural address.
October 2021, Volume 32, Issue 4
The National Endowment for Democracy’s founding president made enormous contributions to the fight for freedom and human rights. Reflections on what his 37-year tenure meant for the democratic cause—and this journal.
January 2024, Volume 35, Issue 1
Autocrats have found a new way to turn citizens against liberal democracy: convincing them that LGBTIQ rights, granted and protected in much of the West, pose a threat to their nation and its values.
April 2020, Volume 31, Issue 2
Sub-Saharan African governments are clamping down on media freedom. More surprising is how many of their citizens appear to support this attack on the press.
July 2013, Volume 24, Issue 3
The widely hailed writings of Singapore’s Kishore Mahbubani, including his latest book, The Great Convergence: Asia, the West, and the Logic of One World, reveal a remarkably narrow and Manichean worldview.
October 2024, Volume 35, Issue 4
The People’s Republic of China has entered a new age, abandoning the ideological openness of the reform era and the socialist legacy of the revolutionary period. Under Xi Jinping, regime stability trumps all — and the PRC is weaker and less stable as a result.