April 2001, Volume 12, Issue 2
Massive protest by indigenous groups in both 2000 and 2001 have overthrown one president and weakened another. Though such conflict poses a short-term threat, it may ultimately contribute to democratic development.
April 2001, Volume 12, Issue 2
In postindustrial societies, class is less important as a source of party cleavage. With the European left embracing a market-friendly “third way,” political divisions in Europe are increasingly resembling those in the United States.
April 2001, Volume 12, Issue 2
The mass demonstrations that ousted President Joseph Estrada recalled those that had brought down dictator Ferdinand Marcos 15 years earlier. Yet the return of “People Power” raises some concerns about the health of Filipino democracy.
April 2001, Volume 12, Issue 2
With longtime ruler Jerry Rawlings obeying constitutional term limits, the opposition won a narrow electoral victory, bringing Ghana its first peaceful transfer of power since independence.
April 2001, Volume 12, Issue 2
The November 2000 parliamentary elections, expected to be a step forward for democracy, instead turned into a major setback, casting doubt on the country’s future stability.
April 2001, Volume 12, Issue 2
Although friendly to business, Singapore’s government represses dissent and is far from transparent in its management of public funds. A leading dissident chronicles his struggle for greater openness.
January 2001, Volume 12, Issue 1
Democracy by itself does not put an end to injustice or inequality, but it establishes the most favorable conditions for making progress in the struggle to achieve a just society.
January 2001, Volume 12, Issue 1
The military regime of General Musharraf has been less repressive than many had feared, but there is little sign that it is overcoming the deep-seated problems that led to the failure of Pakistani democracy.
January 2001, Volume 12, Issue 1
The astonishing electoral victories by opposition presidential candidates in Korea, Taiwan, and Mexico all followed a remarkably similar pattern, but it is one that may lead to difficulties for democratic consolidation.
January 2001, Volume 12, Issue 1
While many of the world’s pseudodemocracies have lately made the transition to “unadulterated” democracy, Malaysia and its leader, Mahathir Mohamad, have successfully bucked this trend.
January 2001, Volume 12, Issue 1
Under many nondemocratic systems, good policy is bad politics, and bad policy helps leaders stay in office. The result is poorer performance in terms of economic growth.
January 2001, Volume 12, Issue 1
Morocco’s new king, Mohamed VI, has two alternatives: He can invent a new “ruling bargain,” prolonging his father’s authoritarian rule in a new guise, or he can spearhead serious political reforms.
January 2001, Volume 12, Issue 1
Promising advances in the status of freedom in the world during the past year have been matched by significant disappointments.
January 2001, Volume 12, Issue 1
Citizens of postcommunist countries not only want to be free to say what they think and to vote their conscience; they also want a government that obeys the rules it lays down and is not steeped in corruption.
January 2001, Volume 12, Issue 1
Although Africa is a latecomer to democratization, Africans overwhelmingly support democracy, and their conception of democracy is surprisingly liberal.
January 2001, Volume 12, Issue 1
Judging from their citizens’ middling levels of support for and satisfaction with democracy, both Korea and Taiwan are still far from democratic consolidation.
January 2001, Volume 12, Issue 1
Across Latin America, public support for democracy has been remarkably stable and consistently higher than satisfaction with the way that democracy works. Low institutional trust reflects even lower levels of interpersonal trust.
January 2001, Volume 12, Issue 1
Malapportionment poses a serious, yet hitherto neglected, challenge to the quality and fairness of democracy in many Latin American countries.
January 2001, Volume 12, Issue 1
The stunning defeat of a draft constitution backed by President Robert Mugabe and the opposition’s unexpectedly strong showing in the June 2000 parliamentary elections may have marked the beginning of the end of ruling-party hegemony in Zimbabwe.
October 2000, Volume 11, Issue 4
Vicente Fox’s victory in Mexico’s July 2000 presidential election revealed the fundamental changes that had been taking place under the veil of governmental continuity.
October 2000, Volume 11, Issue 4
The beauty of Mexico’s transition to democracy lay in the way it evolved gradually and peacefully over the course of a decade.
October 2000, Volume 11, Issue 4
Although Fox’s National Action Party (PAN) is frequently portrayed as a reactionary party, it is better understood as a liberal-democratic alternative to the former ruling party’s authoritarianism.
October 2000, Volume 11, Issue 4
Any serious discussion of Mexico’s future must take into account its relations with the United States.
October 2000, Volume 11, Issue 4
Are all, or only some, of the world’s religious systems politically compatible with democracy?
October 2000, Volume 11, Issue 4
An Egyptian civil-society leader responds to the closing down of his organization and the allegations against him by state prosecutors.
October 2000, Volume 11, Issue 4
Global trends toward economic and political liberalization are presenting East Asian and Latin American democracies with increasingly convergent international opportunities and constraints.
October 2000, Volume 11, Issue 4
Such a comparison clearly shows a higher prevalence of democracy in Latin America and a better economic performance in East Asia. The two regions are likely to converge on both dimensions, but the gaps will remain.
October 2000, Volume 11, Issue 4
Despite the persistent doomsaying about the political consequences of untrammeled international capital flows, financial liberalization may actually contribute to democratic consolidation.
October 2000, Volume 11, Issue 4
In hotly contested parliamentary elections, candidates supportive of President Khatami’s reforms won an overwhelming victory.
October 2000, Volume 11, Issue 4
Once again, a reformist electoral victory has been followed by political setbacks. The key to understanding this paradoxical pattern lies in the unique theocratic constitutional structure of the Islamic Republic.
October 2000, Volume 11, Issue 4
The uneasy accommodation of competing visions of authority that has characterized Iran’s political system since 1979 is a familiar phenomenon in the Middle East and elsewhere.
October 2000, Volume 11, Issue 4
The “Fourth Generation” of Iranian intellectuals has a vital role to play in strengthening civil society and fostering democratization.
October 2000, Volume 11, Issue 4
Four excerpts from the Iranian press-on elections and democracy and on religious intolerance and intellectual pluralism-suggest the extent to which democratic thinking has gained a foothold in Iran.
October 2000, Volume 11, Issue 4
Recent studies of democracy in Latin America overlook the role of civil society as an agent of accountability.
October 2000, Volume 11, Issue 4
A nongovernmental organization, Citizens Organized to Monitor Voting (GONG), helped ensure the transparency of Croatia’s recent elections.
July 2000, Volume 11, Issue 3
The experience of “bandit capitalism” or “tyrant capitalism” in postcommunist societies shows that markets cannot work properly without a community of trust and mutual respect. Such a community can be achieved only where there is a rule of law, applied by able and independent judges.
July 2000, Volume 11, Issue 3
Does the election of Vladimir Putin as Russia’s president represent a fundamental turn away from democracy or merely a temporary setback? Although Putin’s apparent indifference to democracy is worrisome, it would be premature to conclude that democracy is lost in Russia.
July 2000, Volume 11, Issue 3
The analogy with feudalism helps us understand the baffling changes that unexpectedly appeared during the transition away from communist rule.
July 2000, Volume 11, Issue 3
Vladimir Putin soon must make a fundamental choice: whether to hold on to monolithic power or to adopt a reformist course that could leave him at the center of a battle without any guarantee of success.
July 2000, Volume 11, Issue 3
The debate over Russia’s likely course of development under Putin has paid surprisingly little attention to his openly stated goal of reintegrating Russia with other former Soviet republics.
July 2000, Volume 11, Issue 3
A specter is haunting China-the specter of classical liberalism.
July 2000, Volume 11, Issue 3
Democracy is spreading everywhere except in the Arab world. Arab elections are an immense masquerade. Corrupt dictatorships seek to stifle freedom of thought and to control the flow of information.
July 2000, Volume 11, Issue 3
Many observers regarded 1999 as a year of progress for democracy in the Arab world. There is reason to doubt, however, whether any meaningful change has really occurred.
July 2000, Volume 11, Issue 3
While despotic Arab regimes may seem stable, change is brewing beneath the surface. A new era is emerging in which the state will be forced to retreat before a vibrant civil society.
July 2000, Volume 11, Issue 3
Pakistan’s descent into authoritarian rule starkly depicts the “triple crisis of governance” that threatens many third-wave democracies. If these problems of governance are not addressed, a new “reverse wave” of democratization could be imminent.
July 2000, Volume 11, Issue 3
The promotion of democracy in Africa has become the dominant theme of South Africa’s foreign policy. Yet the dilemmas this policy has confronted in practice have forced the government to alter its approach.
July 2000, Volume 11, Issue 3
One of the greatest obstacles to democratic consolidation in Turkey has been the country's treatment of its Kurdish citizens. The root of the problem lies in the very nature of the Turkish state, which confuses unity with uniformity.
July 2000, Volume 11, Issue 3
In recent years several Westminster-style parliamentary democracies have considered cutting their ties with the British monarchy and becoming republics. The difficulties involved in trying to make such a shift were on full display in Australia.
July 2000, Volume 11, Issue 3
As the experience of Latin America makes clear, a strong civil society is not necessarily a democratic one. Democratic deficits within civil society jeopardize its ability to perform its proper social functions.
July 2000, Volume 11, Issue 3
In The Logic of Japanese Politics, Gerald Curtis portrays the political history of Japan in the 1990s in its full complexity.
April 2000, Volume 11, Issue 2
A quarter-century after the classic study The Crisis of Democracy was published, three distinguished political scientists find that, though the “crisis” may have disappeared, public confidence is on the decline in almost all the world’s advanced democracies.
April 2000, Volume 11, Issue 2
With Austria’s and Switzerland’s leading political parties having “rigged the political marketplace” by forming Grand Coalitions, voters have turned to the radical right as the only available alternative.
April 2000, Volume 11, Issue 2
Recent disappointments have led to excessive pessimism about Latin America’s economic and democratic prospects. International recognition of the region’s diversity and a sense of perspective about its setbacks will improve its chances for further success.
April 2000, Volume 11, Issue 2
The most striking thing about Fernando de la Rua’s presidential victory in Argentina was the routine-even boring-character of the elections. This turn toward normalization is a major break with the past.
April 2000, Volume 11, Issue 2
The unexpectedly strong showing of media-savvy rightist candidate Joaquín Lavín in the 1999 presidential elections and the move to the center by Concertación candidate Ricardo Lagos suggest that Chile has begun to put the ghosts of Allende and Pinochet to rest.
April 2000, Volume 11, Issue 2
Lavín’s strong showing did not represent an “earthquake” or a dramatic change in the electoral landscape. Voting patterns have remained basically unchanged since 1988, giving Lagos a clear mandate to lead Chile into the next millennium.
April 2000, Volume 11, Issue 2
In the November 1999 presidential election, Uruguayans reaffirmed their strong commitment to democracy, while adjusting to a set of constitutional reforms that profoundly altered the electoral system.
April 2000, Volume 11, Issue 2
A country's political regime, regardless of its level of development, affects its social performance. Fewer children die in democracies than in dictatorships.
April 2000, Volume 11, Issue 2
Nowhere else has the impact of international factors on democratization been as apparent as in Central and Eastern Europe. Integration into European and Euro-Atlantic structures is one particularly strong democratizing force.
April 2000, Volume 11, Issue 2
The political dimensions of the 1997-99 Asian financial crisis have been largely ignored. Yet political factors are crucial to understanding the crisis and the differing ways in which the democracies and authoritarian regimes in the region responded to it.
April 2000, Volume 11, Issue 2
A major question in the consolidation of Eastern Europe’s new democracies is whether women will participate fully in the political process. One key indicator is the representation of women in the region’s parliaments.
January 2000, Volume 11, Issue 1
The Editors’ introduction to “Democracy in the World.”
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October 1999, Volume 10, Issue 4
October 1999, Volume 10, Issue 4
October 1999, Volume 10, Issue 4
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October 1999, Volume 10, Issue 4
July 1999, Volume 10, Issue 3
In the summer of 1997, I was asked by a leading Japanese newspaper what I thought was the most important thing that had happened in the twentieth century. I found this to be an unusually thought-provoking question, since so many things of gravity have happened over the last hundred years. The European empires, especially the…
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