
How South Korea’s Next Leader Should Handle Kim Jong-un
South Korea is about to elect a new president. North Korea has changed in recent years. Seoul’s approach to the Kim regime must change to reflect new risks — and Korea’s democratic strength.
2735 Results
South Korea is about to elect a new president. North Korea has changed in recent years. Seoul’s approach to the Kim regime must change to reflect new risks — and Korea’s democratic strength.
January 2015, Volume 26, Issue 1
From small beginnings, democracy aid has become a sizeable enterprise. Today it is beset by problems, however, as it must operate in a less friendly environment. Hard decisions will need to be made to maintain its relevance.
October 2003, Volume 14, Issue 4
The rules that govern voting will always be of vital importance in any democracy. The beginning of wisdom is to turn from the usual focus on electoral systems in order to reflect on larger goals and the trade-offs among them that may be necessary.
January 2024, Volume 35, Issue 1
The BJP is ruling with a heavier hand than ever before, attacking opponents and silencing critics. Ironically, these may be the ideal conditions for a democratic revival—if the opposition seizes the moment.
October 2000, Volume 11, Issue 4
Reports on elections in Ethiopia, Haiti, Lebanon, Mexico, Mongolia, Paraguay, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.
October 2011, Volume 22, Issue 4
Though justly vaunted as the world’s largest democracy, India will in all likelihood remain reluctant to take on the mantle of “democracy promoter” for a mix of historical, ideological, and strategic reasons.
October 2010, Volume 21, Issue 4
May 2010, Benigno Aquino III bested a crowded field to win the presidency. The election, which was remarkably clean and orderly, gave a clear victory to the reformist narrative that has long vied with populism in the Philippines.
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
Long an extreme case of institutionalized instability, Ecuador now has a dynamic young president who is determined to remake its constitution, and eventually its society, in the name of "twenty-first-century socialism."
October 2003, Volume 14, Issue 4
In the wake of its recent crisis, Argentina can move from survival to stability only if it responds to demands for institutional change in a way that strengthens the country’s institutions over the long term.
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.
October 2005, Volume 16, Issue 4
Nepal’s people find themselves caught in an ugly struggle between two antidemocratic ideologies—royal absolutism and Maoism. What happened?
Even in an era haunted by democratic decline, Jason Brownlee and Kenny Miao find that wealthy democracies are unlikely to collapse in their contribution to the October 2022 Journal of Democracy. Six top experts in the field debate their conclusions.
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Like all contemporary nondemocratic systems, the Chinese system suffers from weak legitimacy at the level of regime type. The most likely form of transition for China remains the model of Tiananmen, when three elements came together: a robust plurality of disaffected citizens, a catalytic event, and a split in the leadership. Had China chosen the…
January 2017, Volume 28, Issue 1
The referendum campaign and its aftermath have exposed fault lines between the “two Britains” that have been long in the making and that pose stark questions about national values and identity.
July 2018, Volume 29, Issue 3
The political turmoil following a journalist’s murder in Slovakia has revealed serious dangers to the country’s democratic institutions.
October 2012, Volume 23, Issue 4
A political system in which power is formally divided among ethnic or sectarian groups may seem like a good idea in conflict-ridden societies, but it bears a high price and makes true democratic transition harder to achieve.
Ukraine doesn’t just deserve EU membership. Its bid could revive and reunify Europe.
April 2024, Volume 35, Issue 2
Malawi is a “hard place” for democracy—its economy struggles and state capacity is weak. So how has it avoided the pitfalls that have doomed so many others?
April 2019, Volume 30, Issue 2
The Editors’ introduction to “30 Years After Tiananmen.”