January 2023, Volume 34, Issue 1
China’s Threat to Global Democracy
The Chinese Communist Party is deadly serious about its authoritarian designs, and it is bent on promoting them. It is time for the world’s democracies to get serious, too.
Region: Multiregional
January 2023, Volume 34, Issue 1
Shell Game
Trillions of dollars are stashed in the world’s secret financial system, where they are keeping autocratic regimes afloat and fueling democracy’s decline.
January 2023, Volume 34, Issue 1
Friend of the Devil
McKinsey’s work is bankrolled by major corporations and governments around the world. How should the famous consulting firm choose the clients it represents and the projects it takes on?
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
Rising to the Sharp Power Challenge
While a handful of democracies have responded effectively to this corrosive form of authoritarian influence, most societies are dangerously underequipped. New strategies are urgently needed.
July 2022, Volume 33, Issue 3
Combating Beijing’s Sharp Power: How Australia’s Civil Society Led the Way
Influence operations by the People’s Republic of China and its “united front” organs were exposed years ago, but civil society and Chinese-Australians were first in understanding how to counter them.
April 2022, Volume 33, Issue 2
The Rebirth of the Liberal World Order?
Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has done something for the world’s democrats they could seemingly not do for themselves—given them a renewed unity, purpose, and resolve.
April 2022, Volume 33, Issue 2
The Freedom House Survey for 2021: Authoritarians on Offense
In 2021, autocrats’ efforts to reshape the global order enabled heavier repression and brazen power grabs, while democracies faltered. Is this a tipping point?
April 2022, Volume 33, Issue 2
China’s Tech-Enhanced Authoritarianism
The same technologies that are making traffic flow faster, cities run better, and ad-targeting more precise are also helping authoritarian governments to crush protests, hunt dissidents, and control their populations.
January 2022, Volume 33, Issue 1
Countering Beijing’s Media Manipulation
China is expanding its global media footprint, aggressively peddling its preferred narratives and stifling criticism of its policies, all the while undermining free expression, public debate, and electoral integrity in more open societies.
October 2021, Volume 32, Issue 4
Trading Democracy for Governance
Majorities across the globe claim to support democratic rule, but their definitions of it vary widely. A look at where publics are willing to exchange their democratic principles for better results—and where they will not.
April 2021, Volume 32, Issue 2
The Freedom House Survey for 2020: Democracy in a Year of Crisis
The year 2020 saw the global weakening of democratic norms reinforced by authoritarian influence campaigns, crackdowns on protest movements, and the use and abuse of new powers adopted in the name of responding to the covid-19 pandemic.
April 2021, Volume 32, Issue 2
Why the Future Is Democratic
The swelling pessimism about democracy’s future is unwarranted. Values focused on human freedom are spreading throughout the world, and suggest that the future of self-government is actually quite bright.
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
Democracy’s Development Dividend
The alleged tradeoff between economic development and political democracy-building is more fiction than fact. Indeed, progress toward fuller democratic governance can in fact enhance development.
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
Thieves’ Paradise
A review of Kleptopia: How Dirty Money Is Conquering the World, by Tom Burgis.
October 2020, Volume 31, Issue 4
The Authoritarian Assault on Knowledge
Universities, publishers, and other knowledge-sector institutions face increasingly sophisticated authoritarian efforts to quash critics and subvert independent inquiry.
October 2020, Volume 31, Issue 4
How Authoritarians Use International Law
Through greater savvy engagement with international law, authoritarians are seeking not only to shield themselves from criticism, but to reshape global norms in their favor.
October 2020, Volume 31, Issue 4
China’s Message Machine
The People’s Republic of China uses massive amounts of propaganda to influence how it is perceived beyond its borders. “Big data” reveal how that image is carefully and deliberately shaped for different audiences in different places.
October 2020, Volume 31, Issue 4
Covid vs. Democracy: Introduction
The Editors’ introduction to “Covid vs. Democracy.”
July 2020, Volume 31, Issue 3
China’s Pandemic Power Play
President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party are taking advantage of the coronavirus pandemic to seize new ground and promote China’s global influence. But their assertive, strong-arm tactics are born from fear and restless insecurity.
April 2020, Volume 31, Issue 2
The Freedom House Survey for 2019: The Leaderless Struggle for Democracy
In 2019, the global democratic recession deepened, while protest movements proliferated around the world, fighting largely without leaders or support from major democracies.
April 2020, Volume 31, Issue 2
A Lost Decade for Third-Wave Democracies?
Ordinary citizens in East Asia, Latin America, and Africa are increasingly disappointed with democracy and its ability to deliver.
April 2019, Volume 30, Issue 2
Weaponizing Interpol
Globalized authoritarian regimes are increasingly abusing Interpol’s notice system to go after political opponents based abroad. These regimes seek not only to punish their critics, but also to legitimate their own acts of repression.
April 2019, Volume 30, Issue 2
Populists in Power
The historical record since 1945 gives us a picture of how populists operate once they hold political power. The record shows that populism is inimical to liberal democracy, and not a corrective to some of its failings.
April 2019, Volume 30, Issue 2
The Freedom House Survey for 2018: Democracy in Retreat
Key democratic norms remained under threat in 2018, but there were also unexpected breakthroughs in Armenia, Malaysia, and Ethiopia.
January 2019, Volume 30, Issue 1
How to Un-Rig an Election
A review of How to Rig an Election by Nic Cheeseman and Brian Klaas.
October 2018, Volume 29, Issue 4
Liberal Democracy’s Crisis of Confidence
Public-opinion data from Pew Research Center show that global support for representative democracy is widespread, but often thin. Amid rising economic anxiety, cultural unease, and political frustration, citizens are increasingly open to alternative systems of government.
October 2018, Volume 29, Issue 4
Understanding Authoritarian Regionalism
Taking advantage of broad global respect for regionalism, authoritarian regimes are using their own regional organizations to bolster fellow autocracies. These groupings offer a mechanism for lending legitimacy, redistributing resources, and insulating members from democratic influences.
April 2018, Volume 29, Issue 2
China in Xi’s “New Era”: Overstepping Down Under
Australia has been an early target of China’s efforts to buy influence and suppress critical voices, but it has begun mounting a serious defense.
April 2018, Volume 29, Issue 2
China in Xi’s “New Era”: New Zealand and the CCP’s “Magic Weapons”
The Chinese Communist Party has been using New Zealand as a testing ground for its strategy of building influence through “united front work.”
April 2018, Volume 29, Issue 2
The Freedom House Survey for 2017: Democracy Beleaguered
In 2017, the state of political rights and civil liberties around the world sunk to its lowest point in more than a decade. While the democratic powers grappled with their own internal problems, leading autocrats expanded their global efforts to undermine democratic institutions.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
The Rise of Kleptocracy: A Challenge for Democracy
As explained in the essays that follow, kleptocracy has become a potent threat to the integrity of democracy around the globe.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
The Rise of Kleptocracy: The Dark Side of Globalization
The grand corruption enabled by the rise of offshore finance has come to follow a recurring pattern: steal, obscure, and spend.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
The Rise of Kleptocracy: Laundering Cash, Whitewashing Reputations
To safeguard their ill-gotten gains, kleptocrats rely on a web of transnational relationships and the complicity of Western fixers.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
Fighting Terrorism: The Democracy Advantage
Despite worries that terror groups can turn open societies’ very openness against them, the numbers reveal that liberal democracies enjoy significant advantages in resisting the threat of terrorism.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
The Case for Democratic Persistence
A review of Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom by Condoleezza Rice.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
News and Notes
Fourteenth Annual Lipset Lecture; Conferences on Democracy; Zagreb Youth Summit; IDEA Report on Democracy; Venezuelan Opposition Honored; NDI Democracy Dinner; NED's International Forum
October 2017, Volume 28, Issue 4
Liberal Democracy’s Fading Allure
Is liberal democracy the only suitable type of government for a strong, modern society? A quarter-century ago, the answer seemed to be a clear yes. But today the picture is much cloudier.
October 2017, Volume 28, Issue 4
From Liberation to Turmoil: Social Media and Democracy
Once hailed as a megaphone for marginalized voices and an enabler of free discourse generally, social media now appear to have problematic consequences in both authoritarian and democratic regimes.
October 2017, Volume 28, Issue 4
How Much Democratic Backsliding?
Democracy’s retreat is real, yet alarmist reports of a global demise or crisis of democracy are not warranted.
April 2017, Volume 28, Issue 2
The Modernization Trap
Populist nationalism is emerging as the main competitor to liberal democracy. But despite its current resurgence, in the long run, like other illiberal paths to modernity, it is likely to prove a dead end.
April 2017, Volume 28, Issue 2
The Freedom House Survey for 2016: The Dual Threat of Populists and Autocrats
In 2016, established democracies figured prominently on the list of countries experiencing declines in freedom, while emboldened autocracies stepped up their repression at home and interference abroad.
April 2017, Volume 28, Issue 2
News and Notes
Oswaldo Payá Award; Democratic Deconsolidation: An Exchange; Yazidi Activists Honored; Human-Rights Summit; Remembering U Ko Ni (1953–2017); NED’s International Forum
January 2017, Volume 28, Issue 1
Violence Against Women in Politics
The use of force and intimidation against women trying to take part in politics is a growing problem in many places. Such violence assumes a number of different forms, but all aim to keep women as women out of public life.
October 2016, Volume 27, Issue 4
When Dictators Die
What political consequences can we expect when aging dictators die while in power? A fifth of the world’s autocracies are facing such a possibility, but the evidence shows that this may not augur well for democracy.
April 2016, Volume 27, Issue 2
The Freedom House Survey for 2015: Anxious Dictators, Wavering Democrats
In 2015, the tenth consecutive year of decline in global freedom, the world was battered by overlapping crises, spurring harsh authoritarian crackdowns and revealing the leading democracies’ lack of conviction.
April 2016, Volume 27, Issue 2
The Struggle for Subnational Democracy
Ten of the world’s twelve largest countries are “electoral democracies.” Yet a look at politics beneath the national level reveals patterns of illiberalism that mark out a new frontier for democratic research and activism.
October 2015, Volume 26, Issue 4
The Rise of the World’s Poorest Countries
Widely believed to be hopelessly mired in poverty, stagnation, and dictatorship, the developing world has in fact been making steady progress for over two decades in health, education, income, and conflict reduction, along with democracy.
October 2015, Volume 26, Issue 4
Authoritarianism Goes Global (II): Civil Society Under Assault
Once widely celebrated, civil society today is regarded as a threat by many governments, leading them to restrict its funding and activities.
October 2015, Volume 26, Issue 4
The Evolution of Political Order
A review of Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy by Francis Fukuyama.
July 2015, Volume 26, Issue 3
Authoritarianism Goes Global: Countering Democratic Norms
Favored by global conditions that lean their way, authoritarians have been busy over the last decade coming up with new and inventive ways to thwart the global advance of democracy and human rights.
July 2015, Volume 26, Issue 3
Authoritarianism Goes Global: Cyberspace Under Siege
Rosy assumptions once held that the Internet would inevitably undermine unfree regimes. A look around the world today, however, indicates that something very different and far more disturbing is going on.
July 2015, Volume 26, Issue 3
Authoritarianism Goes Global: Election Monitoring vs. Disinformation
Nonpartisan election monitoring has helped to foster democratization over the last thirty years, but now dictators are trying to sabotage it, often by spreading lies and confusion.
April 2015, Volume 26, Issue 2
The Freedom House Survey for 2014: A Return to the Iron Fist
In a year marked by escalating terrorism, the use of more brutal repression by authoritarian regimes, and Russia’s annexation of a neighboring country’s territory, the state of freedom worsened significantly in nearly every part of the world.
October 2014, Volume 25, Issue 4
From Politics to Protest
The protests that have been erupting around the world may signal the twilight of both the idea of revolution and the notion of political reformism.
July 2014, Volume 25, Issue 3
Gay Rights: Why Democracy Matters
The year 2013 featured unprecedented strides for gay rights in some parts of the world, particularly in Western Europe and the Americas, but also startling setbacks elsewhere, as in Russia and some countries in Africa.
July 2014, Volume 25, Issue 3
Will Malaysia Follow the Path of Taiwan and Mexico?
The hegemonic-party systems of Taiwan and Mexico began to loosen in the 1980s, eventually yielding to democracy. Malaysia’s ruling party, by contrast, has tightened the reins of power in the face of increasing opposition.
July 2014, Volume 25, Issue 3
Is Small Really Beautiful? The Microstate Mistake
Tiny countries have come in for praise as miniature models of democracy, but closer examination tells a mainly more somber tale.
July 2014, Volume 25, Issue 3
V-Dem: A New Way to Measure Democracy
In order to mark democracy’s progress and to inform policy, we need to be able to measure democracy in sufficient detail. The V-Dem Project aims to deliver exactly such a tool.
April 2014, Volume 25, Issue 2
The Freedom House Survey for 2013: The Democratic Leadership Gap
Civil-liberties scores have notably declined over the past several years, while political-rights scores have slightly improved—perhaps because modern authoritarians have begun to adopt subtler means of repression. Overall, however, freedom experienced a global decline for the eighth straight year in 2013.
January 2014, Volume 25, Issue 1
Breaking the News: The Role of State-Run Media
“New media” may generate a lot of buzz, but authoritarian regimes are proving disturbingly adept both at counteracting them and at using more traditional media to help themselves hang on to power.
January 2014, Volume 25, Issue 1
The Crisis of Liberalism
Liberalism as a governing order is barely two centuries old. A response to the great alternatives presented by Europe’s political history, it represents a unique synthesis of the ancient and the modern. But globalization has cast a deep shadow across liberalism’s future.
July 2013, Volume 24, Issue 3
The Durability of Revolutionary Regimes
Authoritarian regimes that have their origins in revolutionary struggle have a much higher survival rate than other brands of authoritarianism. What accounts for their durability?
April 2013, Volume 24, Issue 2
Islamists and Democracy: Cautions from Pakistan
It is easy for Islamists to accept the democratic principle of majority rule when it results in their being elected to power. But the experience of Pakistan warns us that efforts to “Islamize” laws and public life may be hard to reverse even if Islamists are voted out of office.
April 2013, Volume 24, Issue 2
The Freedom House Survey for 2012: Breakthroughs in the Balance
Although declines in freedom outnumbered gains yet again in 2012, the year was not without some significant progress, most notably in the case of Libya.
April 2013, Volume 24, Issue 2
Armies and Revolutions
A key factor in determining the success or failure of revolutions is how the national armed forces react. What are the keys to making accurate predictions about what the soldiers will do when the fate of a regime hangs in the balance?
April 2013, Volume 24, Issue 2
Defunding Dissent: Restrictions on Aid to NGOs
A number of countries including Russia and post-Mubarak Egypt are taking aggressive steps to limit or stop foreign funds from flowing to domestic NGOs that promote human rights and democracy. What is driving this trend, how far will it go, and what can be done to counter it?
January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
Building Democratic Militaries
A review of The Soldier and the Changing State: Building Democratic Armies in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas by Zoltan Barany.
October 2012, Volume 23, Issue 4
School for Dictators
A review of The Dictator’s Learning Curve: Inside the Global Battle for Democracy by William J. Dobson
July 2012, Volume 23, Issue 3
Turkey and Thailand: Unlikely Twins
Turkey and Thailand, two countries at different corners of the Asian landmass, appear at first glance to be an odd couple, but a closer look at their respective political situations reveals surprising parallels.
April 2012, Volume 23, Issue 2
The Freedom House Survey for 2011: The Year of the Arab Uprisings
Although in 2011 declines in freedom exceeded gains for the sixth straight year, the uprisings in the Arab world represent the most significant challenge to authoritarian rule since the collapse of Soviet communism.
April 2012, Volume 23, Issue 2
Ballots, Bullets, and the Bottom Billion
Does recourse to the ballot box spur violence and instability in the world’s poorest countries? Despite the worries of modernization theorists such as Paul Collier, the evidence indicates that, over time, elections are not associated with higher levels of political violence.
January 2012, Volume 23, Issue 1
Democracy Assistance: What Recipients Think
A groundbreaking new survey shows that democracy assistance is highly valued by its recipients but that there remains room for improvement.
October 2011, Volume 22, Issue 4
Do New Democracies Support Democracy? The Multilateral Dimension
When it comes to backing democracy and human rights in international forums, the behavior of the world’s six most influential rising democracies ranges from sympathetic support to borderline hostility.
October 2011, Volume 22, Issue 4
Fukuyama’s Grand Vision
A review of The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution by Francis Fukuyama.
July 2011, Volume 22, Issue 3
Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy: Dealing with Inequality
Many new democracies have faltered due to high levels of inequality and a deep polarization between the rich and poor. What is the relationship between modern liberal democracy and socioeconomic inequality?
April 2011, Volume 22, Issue 2
The Freedom House Survey for 2010: Democracy Under Duress
The past decade began at a high point for freedom but ended with freedom in peril. Yet the setbacks of the last five years do not outweigh the democratic gains of the last forty.
April 2011, Volume 22, Issue 2
Liberation Technology: Whither Internet Control?
Paradoxically, the rising profile of “liberation technology” may push Internet-control efforts into nontechnological areas—imprisonment rather than censorship, for example—for which there is no easy technical “fix.”
April 2011, Volume 22, Issue 2
FOI Laws Around the World
Are laws guaranteeing citizens freedom of access to public information (FOI laws) among the most important democratic innovations of the last century?
January 2011, Volume 22, Issue 1
The Impact of the Economic Crisis: Why Democracies Survive
As an analysis of recent electoral results shows, the world’s emerging democracies are weathering the global economic crisis surprisingly well. Yet they remain under an even sharper threat from their own failures to deliver good governance.
January 2011, Volume 22, Issue 1
The Impact of the Economic Crisis: From the G-8 to the G-20
The financial crisis did not deal a fatal blow to any democracies, but it did hasten an erosion of the influence of the West. In the future, the balance of power among competing regime types may be decided by the emerging-market democracies.
January 2011, Volume 22, Issue 1
Building Democracy While Building Peace
Why are peacebuilding operations rarely able to establish postconflict democracies, and are there other strategies that would yield more successes?
October 2010, Volume 21, Issue 4
Democracy Support and Development Aid: The Elusive Synthesis
The lines between the development-aid and democracy-aid communities have been blurring, in terms of both organizational boundaries and activities on the ground, but the convergence is far from complete.
July 2010, Volume 21, Issue 3
Liberation Technology
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.
April 2010, Volume 21, Issue 2
Democracy and Deep Divides
How do democracies deal with the deep divisions created by race, ethnicity, religion, and language? The cases of Canada, India, and the United States show that democratic institutions—notably, competitive elections and independent judiciaries—can bridge divides and build stability, but they must find a way to manage the tension between individual and group equality.
April 2010, Volume 21, Issue 2
The Ex-Presidents
What makes elected leaders step down at the appointed hour, and what do they have to look forward to once their terms end? A look at the political afterlives of world leaders tells us that the future prospects of presidents and premiers may well affect their behavior while in office.
April 2010, Volume 21, Issue 2
The Freedom House Survey for 2009: The Erosion Accelerates
Although the overall state of freedom in the world has clearly improved over the last two decades, more recent trends are worrisome. In 2009, declines in freedom outnumbered gains for the fourth consecutive year.
April 2010, Volume 21, Issue 2
What Makes Legislatures Strong?
A review of The Handbook of National Legislatures: A Global Survey by M. Steven Fish and Matthew Kroenig, and Legislative Power in Emerging African Democracies edited by Joel D. Barkan.
July 2007, Volume 18, Issue 3
The Democracy Barometers (Part I)
The Editors’ introduction to the first of two clusters on “The Democracy Barometers.”
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
The 2006 Freedom House Survey: The Pushback Against Democracy
Although the overall state of democracy in the world differed little from that in 2005, a series of worrisome trends seem to be contributing to a stagnation of freedom.
April 2006, Volume 17, Issue 2
Identity, Immigration, and Liberal Democracy
Contemporary liberal democracies, especially in Western Europe, face a major challenge in integrating Muslim immigrants as citizens of pluralistic societies.
July 2003, Volume 14, Issue 3
Measuring Democratic Commitment
A review of Defending Democracy: A Global Survey of Foriegn Policy Trends 1992-2002, Edited by Robert G. Herman and Theodore J. Piccone.
July 2003, Volume 14, Issue 3
After the Shooting Stops
A review of "Ending Civil Wars: The Implementation of Peace Agreements" Edited by Stephen John Stedman, Donald Rothchild, and Elizabeth M. Cousens.
April 2003, Volume 14, Issue 2
The Cracked Foundations of the Right to Secede
The claim that ethnic minorities have a moral and legal right to secede from states is a dangerous fiction with perilous implications for divided societies.
April 2003, Volume 14, Issue 2
Books in Review: The Post-Soviet Political Mind
A review of “Conversations with Gorbachev” by Mikhail Gorbachev and Zdenek Mlynár.
January 2003, Volume 14, Issue 1
Character and Leadership
A review of The Politics of Moral Capital by John Kane.
July 2002, Volume 13, Issue 3
Globalization and Self-Government
Until now, globalization and democratization have been mutually reinforcing, but in the future globalization may pose serious challenges for democracy.
January 2002, Volume 13, Issue 1
The 2001 Freedom House Survey: Muslim Countries and the Democracy Gap
The year 2001 saw modest gains in the strengthening and consolidation of democracy worldwide, but in predominantly Muslim countries—especially the Arab states—the status of freedom and democracy lags far behind the rest of the world.
October 1999, Volume 10, Issue 4
Federalism and Democracy: Beyond the U.S. Model
October 1999, Volume 10, Issue 4
The Drama of Democratization
October 1999, Volume 10, Issue 4