2531 Results
October 2018, Volume 29, Issue 4
A disconnect between Bolivia’s old party system and the country’s deeper social-cleavage structure led to a massive shift in politics there. What lessons might be drawn for other nations?
October 2018, Volume 29, Issue 4
Democracy is enduring in Latin America, but it cannot be said to be prospering. Illiberalism and polarization are rising. Yet core democratic institutions remain firmly in place, and therein lies hope.
October 2018, Volume 29, Issue 4
In Malaysia’s May 2018 general election, a grand bargain between ex–prime minister Mahathir Mohamad and reform leader Anwar Ibrahim produced a political earthquake that ended 61 years of rule by the United Malays National Organization (UMNO).
July 2018, Volume 29, Issue 3
Viewed until recently as an exemplar of democratic transformation, Poland is increasingly seen as a leading case of democratic backsliding, thanks to a series of illiberal measures pushed through by the Law and Justice party.
July 2018, Volume 29, Issue 3
In Romania today, as in Italy twenty years ago, the gradual politicization of anticorruption has come to shape the political scene.
April 2018, Volume 29, Issue 2
China has emerged as a key player in development assistance, challenging the mainstream development community’s emphasis on good governance.
April 2018, Volume 29, Issue 2
Australia has been an early target of China’s efforts to buy influence and suppress critical voices, but it has begun mounting a serious defense.
April 2018, Volume 29, Issue 2
Through its “16+1” initiative, China is building relationships with postcommunist Europe that could threaten to undermine the European Union.
April 2018, Volume 29, Issue 2
Despite current trends, Chinese thinkers friendly to human rights and liberal democracy have left behind a treasury of thought from which their country may one day draw new inspiration.
April 2018, Volume 29, Issue 2
Sophisticated technology could not keep Kenya’s August 2017 presidential election from leading to renewed ethnic tensions and a painful standoff from which the country appears only now to be emerging. What went wrong?
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
One of the world’s worst public-corruption scandals shows how a lax international financial system enables massive graft in developing countries.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
China has seen a staggering number of official corruption cases in recent years. But does it merit the label of kleptocracy?
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
The worldwide popularity of runoff rules for presidential elections has grown strikingly in recent decades. In Latin America, contrary to scholarly expectations, this shift has had important benefits for democracy.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
Contra Ben Margulies, one can clearly mark the boundaries that separate antidemocrats from democrats (nativists included), and nativists from populists.
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 2017, Volume 28, Issue 4
Wrongly viewed by many media sources as a victory for “reform” and “openness,” the recent presidential election in Iran actually reflected the demoralization and disengagement of the country’s prodemocratic opposition.
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…
October 2017, Volume 28, Issue 4
Read the full essay here. This essay argues that the sources of the current revival of Russian authoritarianism lie in the country’s economic and political history. Among the major factors behind President Putin’s rise and consolidation of power, it cites an ideological overemphasis on the state that fosters hostility toward human rights and liberties; deeply…
July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3
Read the full essay here. When the authors of India’s Constitution took the extraordinarily bold step of establishing universal suffrage, thus giving the right to vote to all adult citizens, India became the world’s first large democracy to adopt universal adult suffrage from its very inception. We call India’s move “instant universal suffrage,” and distinguish…
July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3
Political elites once held referendums to fend off challenges to European integration. More recently, Euroskeptic parties have employed referendums to batter down the walls of elite consensus. But the spread of referendums threatens to undermine the legitimacy of representative democracy.
