Authoritarians weaponize LGBT+ rights to undermine pluralism and cement their rule. Can democracy still protect and advance these rights? Read about how LGBT+ rights have been both expanded and resisted around the world, and offer ideas for how democracies can defend them.
The Hungarian prime minister is on a mission to overrun Brussels, disrupt the EU, and consolidate his power at home. It just might work.
The CCP is engaged in a sprawling campaign to undermine democracy. Governments too often can be lumbering or weak in response. Look to civil society for the creativity and skill to keep the CCP on its heels.
Reports on elections in Rwanda, Syria, and Venezuela.
The Venezuelan strongman is attempting to steal the country’s presidential election and daring the people to stop him. But even if military leaders are backing him, Maduro is already weaker than he appears.
The latest issue of the Journal of Democracy covers important and alarming global trends, including political polarization and rising illiberalism, as well the struggle between autocrats and democrats in Africa, Latin America, South Asia, and beyond. Read it before it goes behind a paywall.
The struggle between the Marcos and Duterte clans isn’t just a battle between two houses. It is becoming a proxy fight between the United States and China for the future of the Indo-Pacific.
For years, the Venezuelan opposition has fought hard against a corrupt regime — and come up short. But this time, with four key ingredients in place, we are on the cusp of a historic victory.
There is nothing inherently menacing or antidemocratic about conspiracy theories. They can even be a source of amusement. The trouble comes when political elites weaponize them to invite violence.
This year of elections, just over halfway through, has been nothing short of dramatic, with shocks, upsets, protests, and political violence — most notably, the attempted assassination of Donald Trump last weekend. Democracy is being tested as increasingly polarized voters head to the polls. Will it succumb to division and distrust, or will it withstand its present trials?
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.
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.
Reports on elections in Belgium, Bulgaria, the European Union, France, Iran, Mauritania, Mongolia, San Marino, and the United Kingdom.
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.
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.
Want to distract the public? Little works better than family feuds ripped from soap opera plotlines. That’s how the Marcos and Duterte clans keep people glued to the drama while crowding out democratic reform.
Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America is as insightful today as in 1835. On this Fourth of July, the Journal of Democracy is sharing three essays reflecting on the prescience of Tocqueville’s observations from nearly two centuries ago.
In the 1991 classic, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century, Samuel P. Huntington offered a new way of understanding democracy’s global trajectory. Amid rising global populism and increasingly aggressive authoritarian leaders, has Huntington’s framework outlived its usefulness?
The South American country was once the most coup-prone in the world. Many thought it had closed that chapter. So why did it just suffer another attempted coup?
Samuel Huntington’s classic theory offered a new way of understanding democracy’s global trajectory. But amid rising populism and increasingly aggressive authoritarian leaders, has Huntington’s thesis outlived its usefulness?
