Iraq: Setbacks, Advances, Prospects
The stakes are enormous and the challenges are difficult, but a look at Iraq months after the toppling of Saddam Hussein reveals that, despite all the frustrating setbacks, grounds for cautious optimism remain.
January 2004
Volume 15, Issue 1
Europe Moves Eastward
Europe Moves Eastward
The Editors’ introduction to “Europe Moves Eastward.”
Europe Moves Eastward: Challenges of EU Enlargement
As it prepares to go from 15 to 25 member states, the EU has improved the prospects for democracy in the East, but nothing about enlargement promises to resolve the vexing issue of democracy within the EU structure itself.
Europe Moves Eastward: Consolidating Free Government in the New EU
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the involvement of NATO and the EU with their prospective new members has worked strongly in favor of democratic governance in Central and Eastern Europe.
Europe Moves Eastward: Beyond the New Borders
By expanding itself eastward, the EU has not so much settled the questions surrounding the “borders” of Europe as it has displaced them, changing their focus to take in new areas and new issues.
Europe Moves Eastward: NATO’s Peaceful Advance
One of the most important events in post-Cold War international affairs, NATO enlargement is even more of a democratic milestone for the countries of Eastern Europe than is the expansion of the EU.
Europe Moves Eastward: Concluding Reflections
The fall of the Berlin Wall gave East Europeans a euphoric sense that they were about to give European democacy a new direction. But as many of their countries prepare to join the EU, little has worked out as expected in those heady days.
The 2003 Freedom House Survey: National Income and Liberty
Despite the threats posed by terrorism, 2003 saw a second consecutive year of significant momentum of freedom, and showed encouraging evidence that political rights and civil liberties can endure despite economic privation.
Indonesia's Approaching Elections
Indonesia’s Approaching Elections: A Year of Voting Dangerously?
For this huge, sprawling nation in the throes of an ambiguous transition, 2004 will be a year replete with unprecedented electoral tests. In the end, leadership and results will probably count for more than rules and institutions, however carefully designed.
Indonesia’s Approaching Elections: Politics, Islam, and Public Opinion
In the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, a dense and pervasive network of moderate Muslim civil society organizations significantly reinforces political moderation and limiting the appeal of radical Islamism.
Advanced Democracies and the New Politics
The advanced democracies are shifting from a reliance on representation toward a mixed repertoire that includes greater reliance on “direct” and “advocacy” democracy, creating new problems that will require new solutions.
Fox’s Mexico at Midterm
Mexico’s 2003 congressional elections confirmed both the transition to fully competitive politics and the persistence of structural deficiencies associated with a multiparty presidential system.
Research Report: Does Diversity Hurt Democracy?
It has been claimed in the pages of this journal that a homogeneous society is an advantage when it comes to democratization. How might this suggestion be empirically tested, and with what (perhaps preliminary) results?
Putin’s Deep Freeze
A review of Popular Choice and Managed Democracy: The Russian Elections of 1999 and 2000 by Timothy J. Colton and Michael McFaul; Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State by David Satter; and Putin's Russia by Lilia Shevtsova.
Election Watch
Reports on elections in Azerbaijan, Croatia, Georgia, Grenada, Guatemala, Mauritania, Rwanda, and Serbia.
Documents on Democracy
Excerpts from: a November 2003 interview with Iranian human rights activist Shirin Ebadi, winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize; a September 2003 speech by Hossein Khomeni, grandson of the founder and Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran; a September 2003 statement issued by Václav Havel, Arpád Göncz, and Lech Wałęsa, former presidents…