1005 Results
Authoritarians can manipulate the law to rationalize their rule, but the law can equally serve to check authoritarian power. The Journal of Democracy essays below explore the dynamics between leaders and the law. Read for free now.
As political polarization deepens in the world’s democracies, political violence is on the rise. And in the wake of these acts, conspiracy theories often bloom. We offer three essays that look at these forces that threaten to upend democracy, and what must be done to overcome them.
Bitcoin is an indispensable tool for political dissidents in the most repressive environments, argue Alex Gladstein and Félix Maradiaga in two recent Journal of Democracy online exclusives. When dictators weaponize the financial system and obstruct all avenues of dissent, digital currency helps activists keep their operations running.
A few years ago Anura Kumara Dissanayake led a struggling political party with bleak prospects. Now he is Sri Lanka’s newly elected president. The hardest work may still lie ahead.
The latest issue of the Journal of Democracy covers important and alarming global trends, including political polarization and rising illiberalism, as well the struggle between autocrats and democrats in Africa, Latin America, South Asia, and beyond. Read it before it goes behind a paywall.
Millions of voters are casting ballots in a string of elections across the globe this year. At the midyear point, how well is democracy holding up?
Organized criminal groups in Latin America have money, firepower, and a stranglehold on political life — making them incredibly difficult to defeat. How can countries in the region curb the violence and revive democracy?
As 2024 draws to a close, democracy faces urgent threats: increasing aggression from Russia and China, rapidly advancing AI, heightened polarization, and populist leaders in India and elsewhere bending democracy to their will. Here are the Journal of Democracy’s ten most-read essays over the past month.
Elections in nearly eighty countries around the world captured headlines throughout 2024. Meanwhile, NATO turned 75, Viktor Orbán ramped up his repression, and Bitcoin became the currency of choice for democracy activists under threat. These ten essays were the JoD’s most-read online exclusives of 2024.
Across Europe — from Spain to Germany and Sweden to Italy — right-wing parties are gaining ground. The following Journal of Democracy essays, free for a limited time, cover the European far right’s recent successes, and what they mean for the region’s democratic future.
Putin’s war on Ukraine, AI’s threat to democracy, and democracy’s crisis of confidence have been at the forefront of readers’ minds this month. Read May’s top 10 essays for free now!
The Kremlin works hard to indoctrinate Russia’s youth to support Putin’s war in Ukraine. But a strong percentage support an immediate ceasefire and don’t think it’s a cause worth dying for.
The international drug trade has ravaged Latin America. Drug cartels and organized crime groups have grown powerful enough in some countries to infiltrate and even challenge the power of the state. As demand for drugs and profits soars, violence, death, and displacement rain down upon communities, leaving democracy and the economy in shambles.
What the opposition did and how Erdoğan managed to escape outright defeat.
Economic freedom is one of a tyrant’s first targets. My family and I have experienced this firsthand. But tools like Bitcoin offer a lifeline for activists fighting repressive states.
The system that Russia’s autocrat built wasn’t designed to survive the pressures it is now facing.
These excerpts pertain to Rachid al-Ghannouchi and the challenge of blending Islam and democracy.
October 3, 2011
The hope was that President Hakainde Hichilema would bring much-needed reform and openness. Instead, he has ushered in new laws that are silencing dissent and free expression.
When voters are asked to cast ballots for or against important national policies — whether to draft or adopt a new constitution, to abolish or reinstate term limits, or, perhaps most famously, to leave or remain in the European Union — they take that job seriously. Yet national referendums are not always put forward in…
