April 2024, Volume 35, Issue 2
What Went Wrong in Hungary
For a time, Hungary looked like it was on the road to democracy. Viktor Orbán’s success derailing it may teach us how to spot a failing democracy before it is too late.
2614 Results
ukraine war reddit ukraine ukraine war war in ukraine ukraine war more bit.ly/metrics/aggregate
January 2024, Volume 35, Issue 1
Does Democracy Have a Future in Pakistan?
The schism between Pakistan’s military establishment and former prime minister Imran Khan marks a new era of instability. Is the country experiencing the rise of an autocratic deep state or the fall of authoritarian populism?
July 2023, Volume 34, Issue 3
Why Israeli Democracy Is in Crisis
When Israel’s new government introduced proposals that threatened the judiciary’s independence, the country erupted in protest. These tensions will not soon end. Likud, once a center-right party, is now as populist as the European far right.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
The Rise of Kleptocracy: Power and Plunder in Putin’s Russia
Russia’s ruling elite have used corruption not only to line their own pockets, but also as a tool of domestic political control and global power projection.
July 2016, Volume 27, Issue 3
Delegative Democracy Revisited: Latin America’s Problems of Success
Latin America has not been witnessing a general trend toward authoritarianism, but accountability—whether horizontal, vertical, or both—has suffered in some countries, and at times has done so as a side-effect or unexpected cost of what must be considered signal democratic advances toward noble goals such as greater social and political inclusion.
April 2016, Volume 27, Issue 2
The Struggle for Subnational Democracy
Ten of the world’s twelve largest countries are “electoral democracies.” Yet a look at politics beneath the national level reveals patterns of illiberalism that mark out a new frontier for democratic research and activism.
October 2015, Volume 26, Issue 4
After the Arab Spring: Do Muslims Vote Islamic Now?
Islamic political parties were not especially popular with voters in Muslim-majority countries before the Arab Spring. Has that changed?
April 2013, Volume 24, Issue 2
Lessons from Latin America: The Rise of Rentier Populism
Latin America’s much-discussed political “left turn” has taken two very different forms. Why has the region’s commodities boom led some left-turn states to move toward “plebiscitarian superpresidentialism,” while others have resisted this temptation?
October 2011, Volume 22, Issue 4
Do New Democracies Support Democracy? Indonesia Finds a New Voice
Since its transition to democracy barely a decade ago, Indonesia has begun projecting its newly democratic values across international borders. So far, however, its efforts have been largely rhetorical.
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
Progress and Retreat in Africa: Legislatures on the Rise?
The legislature is emerging as a "player" in some African countries, though not in others. What is the relationship between legislative development and democratic consolidation in Africa?
January 2008, Volume 19, Issue 1
The Democracy Barometers (Part II): Attitudes in the Arab World
Findings from the Arab Barometer say little about whether there are likely to be transitions to democracy in the Arab world in the years ahead, but they do offer evidence that citizens' attitudes and values are not the reason that authoritarianism has persisted.
January 2006, Volume 17, Issue 1
The 2005 Freedom House Survey: Progress in the Middle East
The gains for freedom in the Middle East were the most significant seen since the Freedom House survey began in 1972.
July 2004, Volume 15, Issue 3
Russian Democracy in Eclipse: What the Polls Tell Us
The first flush of democratic hopes has faded, as the recent elections have emphasized. But the democratic idea has a foothold, and the presidential machine that swept those elections will not have an easy time retaining its sway.
April 2004, Volume 15, Issue 2
East Timor: Elections in the World’s Newest Nation
East Timor, which emerged from a tragic and bloody past to gain full independence in 2002, offers a factinating case of democratization in a small developing country with a shallow history of democracy.
July 1998, Volume 9, Issue 3
Octavio Paz (1914-1998)
The death of Mexican poet and essayist Octavio Paz on April 20 was (in the words of Mexico’s president Ernesto Zedillo) “an irreplaceable loss for contemporary thought and culture—not just for Latin America but for the entire world.” Born in Mexico City on 31 March 1914, Paz published his first book of poetry while still…
Fall 1990, Volume 1, Issue 4
Election Watch
Reports on elections in: Ecuador, Mongolia, and São Tomé & Príncipe.
April 2011, Volume 22, Issue 2
Paradoxes of the New Authoritarianism
Why are the unfree regimes of the former Soviet world proving so durable? A lack of ideology and—perhaps surprisingly—a degree of openness are proving to be not so much problems for authoritarianism as bulwarks of it.
January 2002, Volume 13, Issue 1
The End of the Transition Paradigm
Must countries where authoritarian regimes have fallen therefore be “in transition” to democracy? Many democracy promoters seem to think so. Yet trends on the ground in country after country are raising doubts about whether it is true or useful to think of democracy’s prospects in this way.
July 2012, Volume 23, Issue 3
African Elections: Two Divergent Trends
Regular elections have become a fixture of political life throughout sub-Saharan Africa, but there are now “two Africas” in this regard: one where elections bring the blessings of greater political openness and competition, and another where elections are, in effect, one more tool that authoritarians use to retain power.
April 2005, Volume 16, Issue 2
Challenge and Change in East Asia: Constitutionalism on Trial in South Korea
During the early years of south korea's transition to democracy, expanding popular rule and deepening individual rights went hand-in-hand. But Roh Moo Hyun's presiency has exposed rifts between majority rule and constitutionalism that the country's judiciary is struggling to bridge.