July 2024, Volume 35, Issue 3
A review of The Death of Truth: How Social Media and the Internet Gave Snake Oil Salesmen and Demagogues the Weapons They Needed to Destroy Trust and Polarize the World — and What We Can Do, by Steven Brill, and Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality, by Renée DiResta.
July 2024, Volume 35, Issue 3
If democracies did a better job “delivering” for their citizens, so the thinking goes, people would not be so ready to embrace antidemocratic alternatives. Not so. This conventional wisdom about democratic backsliding is seldom true and often not accurate at all.
July 2024, Volume 35, Issue 3
Democracy is on dangerous ground when its fundamental rules become the main point of political contention. This is where we are today. The truth is that the institutions, not just the players, need to change.
July 2024, Volume 35, Issue 3
The “crisis” of democracy is a crisis of representation. New parties, some of which are populist in troublingly illiberal ways, are arising from this moment. The danger that they pose is not that they are antidemocratic, but that they are antiliberal.
Why Macron’s Big Gamble Worked | Jean-Yves Camus
The French president risked it all to hand the far right a stinging loss. But the celebration can’t last long. If the country is to avoid greater political chaos, voters must be encouraged to think about broader coalitions that go beyond a narrow left-right divide.
The Empty Promise of Iran’s New President | Ladan Boroumand
Masoud Pezeshkian won’t be a “reformer” in any genuine sense. Like all Iranian presidents, he has pledged his loyalty to Iran’s supreme leader. What he really offers is a softer version of Iran’s grim repression.
Is Democracy Surviving the Year of Elections? | John K. Glenn
Millions of voters are casting ballots in a string of elections across the globe. At the midyear point, how well is democracy holding up?
News & Updates
July 2024
The attack on Donald Trump is one of the worst instances of political violence in recent years. Such violence is the result of a moment in which people begin to see their political opponents as enemies instead of citizens of a different political stripe.
July 2024
In the face of acute polarization, predatory populists, and dysfunctional parties, what can we do to fix our democracies? In the new issue of the Journal of Democracy, Adam Przeworski, Michael Ignatieff, and Thomas Carothers grapple with these questions and explore possible solutions. Read their essays for free until the end of this month.
Most Read
In a deeply polarized United States, ordinary people now consume and espouse once-radical ideas and are primed to commit violence.
The case of Hungary shows how autocrats can rig elections legally, using legislative majorities to change the law and neutralize the opposition at every turn, no matter what strategy they adopt.
Volodymyr Zelensky is far more than a brave wartime leader. He began changing the tenor and direction of Ukrainian politics long before the people made him their president.
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