January 2020, Volume 31, Issue 1
Breaking Out of the Democratic Slump
There is still an opportunity to pull the world out of its democratic slump. What is most needed is democratic conviction and resolve.
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January 2020, Volume 31, Issue 1
There is still an opportunity to pull the world out of its democratic slump. What is most needed is democratic conviction and resolve.
January 2020, Volume 31, Issue 1
Anticorruption has become universally accepted as a norm; that may tell us something about why it struggles in practice.
January 2016, Volume 27, Issue 1
Ethiopia’s ruling party has long been tightening its grip, using antiterrorism laws and harsh restrictions on media and civil society to silence voices critical of the regime.
January 2016, Volume 27, Issue 1
China’s government looks to Singapore, the only country in the region to modernize without liberalizing, in hopes of finding the key to combining authoritarian rule with economic progress and “good governance.”
January 2020, Volume 31, Issue 1
Democratic societies must address the spread of technology developed in authoritarian settings while continuing to uphold democratic norms.
October 2021, Volume 32, Issue 4
Can we recognize the symptoms of backsliding before it’s too late? Though the signals are sometimes faint, a new study of sixteen cases around the world reveals key dynamics common to all.
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.
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Read the full essay here. Twenty years ago, there was a more thoroughgoing political pluralism in Russia than there is today. In some respects, the forms of democracy-including party consolidation-have been enhanced, but they have been so manipulated as to deprive them of substance. Either “electoral authoritarianism” of “multiparty authoritarianism” (Juan Linz’s terms) may reasonably…
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
Democracy assistance has been a growing priority for the United States since the end of the Cold War. The record shows that its focus goes well beyond elections and other procedural dimensions of democracy.
April 2019, Volume 30, Issue 2
Spain’s system of Autonomous Communities had functioned fairly smoothly for decades following the country’s democratic transition, but events in Catalonia are putting it under unprecedented strain.
July 2012, Volume 23, Issue 3
Although Senegal has often been regarded as a democracy, its regime should more properly have been classified as competitive authoritarian. Will the 2012 election of a new president prove to be a turning point?
October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
Latin American social policy has at times worked backwards, widening rather than narrowing economic and social inequalities. But new conditional cash-transfer programs seem to be producing positive outcomes.
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
There is no consensus about the nature of the political system in Moscow today. Yet how one understands the motivations propelling Russian policy abroad depends on how one understands its regime at home.
January 2012, Volume 23, Issue 1
Read the full essay here. Turkish state policy toward the Kurds, the Republic of Turkey’s largest ethnic minority, has evolved from denial and mandatory assimilation to cultural recognition to acknowledgment of the Kurds’ contested status as a political problem demanding political solutions. The election of 36 Kurdish-nationalist lawmakers, most of whom now sit in parliament…
January 2008, Volume 19, Issue 1
The history of twentieth-century European communist parties shows that extremists can be moderated by robust democratic institutions. Without them, however, the inclusion of extremist parties may undermine democracy.
April 2012, Volume 23, Issue 2
Do democracy and good governance necessarily go hand-in-hand? In most Southeast Asian countries, a gap exists between the two. How should we understand good governance in an authoritarian context? And what does poor governance mean for the legitimacy of democracy?
July 2010, Volume 21, Issue 3
The Internet, mobile phones, and other forms of “liberation technology” enable citizens to express opinions, mobilize protests, and expand the horizons of freedom. Autocratic governments are also learning to master these technologies, however. Ultimately, the contest between democrats and autocrats will depend not just on technology, but on political organization and strategy.
October 2019, Volume 30, Issue 4
A trio of national ballotings in 2019 tell a tale of waxing authoritarianism in Southeast Asia, but things could have turned out worse.
Marc Lynch cites new JoD essay on the latest findings of the Arab Barometer Survey on his Abu Aardvark's Middle East Blog.
October 16, 2012