July 2023, Volume 34, Issue 3
This Arab state is different. It is far more liberal than any other Gulf kingdom, and it may even have a path, with much trial and effort, to becoming the region’s first democratic constitutional monarchy.
July 2023, Volume 34, Issue 3
Under Xi Jinping, the Chinese Communist Party has wound down local elections and reasserted control in the countryside. But putting these burdens on its own shoulders brings new and significant risks for Beijing.
April 2021, Volume 32, Issue 2
Recent survey research suggests that most voters disapprove of antidemocratic acts by elected leaders. Yet there are critical exceptions when a significant minority of voters are sympathetic to or even supportive of violations of democratic laws and norms.
April 2020, Volume 31, Issue 2
The coronavirus outbreak has exposed the corrupt and rotten core of the Chinese Communist Party’s dictatorial rule over China. It is a moment of revelation. Can it also become one that leads to change?
July 2019, Volume 30, Issue 3
Three decades after sub-Saharan Africa joined the “third wave,” democracy’s ability to endure has been established in many countries, but its quality remains a grave concern.
April 2019, Volume 30, Issue 2
In May 2018, the people of Malaysia transcended distinctions of class, religion, and ethnicity in order to vote for democracy and reform against a long-ruling party riddled with corruption.
April 2019, Volume 30, Issue 2
Politicians increasingly are attacking central bankers—once viewed as bland, faceless technocrats—for wielding too much power.
April 2018, Volume 29, Issue 2
The ability of liberal democracies around the world to translate popular views into public policy has been declining. Yet there is no easy way to overcome this trend without weakening the capacity of governments to solve some of the most pressing challenges of the coming decades.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
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 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
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
Central African autocrats are using their stolen money to outmaneuver their opponents and deflect international criticism.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
One of the world’s worst public-corruption scandals shows how a lax international financial system enables massive graft in developing countries.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
China has seen a staggering number of official corruption cases in recent years. But does it merit the label of kleptocracy?
April 2017, Volume 28, Issue 2
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
Despite pre-election fears, the victory of the opposition NPP over the ruling NDC in Ghana’s December 2016 elections became the prologue to a peaceful transfer of power. This outcome suggests that the advantage of incumbency in African elections may be on the wane.
October 2016, Volume 27, Issue 4
A review of The Quest for Good Governance: How Societies Develop Control of Corruption by Alina Mungiu-Pippidi.
January 2016, Volume 27, Issue 1
Old-fashioned military coups and blatant election-day fraud are becoming mercifully rarer these days, but other, subtler forms of democratic regression are a growing problem that demands more attention.
January 2016, Volume 27, Issue 1
Are the “virtuous circles” crucial to good governance always the product of long-term developments under unique historical circumstances, or can they be started or accelerated by wise policies?
October 2015, Volume 26, Issue 4
Can decentralization deepen democracy or is it doomed to weaken the state? If well designed, decentralization can have a positive impact on national unity, conflict mitigation, policy autonomy, service delivery, and social learning.
April 2015, Volume 26, Issue 2
The impulse to have crimes against humanity investigated and punished, like the impulse behind “truth and reconciliation” commissions, is understandable. But legalism cannot supersede the hard and messy work of politics.
July 2014, Volume 25, Issue 3
Controlling corruption is a huge challenge for Ukraine, especially in the natural-gas industry. The steps needed are well understood, if only the political will to take them can be summoned.
April 2014, Volume 25, Issue 2
With the defeat of the Tamil Tigers in a 26-year civil war, Sri Lanka had a chance for genuine reconciliation, but that chance is being squandered by the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
January 2014, Volume 25, Issue 1
Improving governance in the EU’s new member states remains a huge challenge for the European project. Why has the EU succeeded in promoting democracy among its postcommunist members but failed in promoting good governance?
January 2014, Volume 25, Issue 1
In 2013, Bulgaria’s historically passive citizenry exploded in outrage over soaring energy bills and shady elite actions. What does Bulgaria’s year of protest tell us about how civic anger is generated and when it becomes a transformative political resource?
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?
January 2012, Volume 23, Issue 1
The legitimacy and appeal of democracy in East Asia will depend on how democratic countries in the region stack up against China.
January 2012, Volume 23, Issue 1
Social activist Anna Hazare’s hunger strike has helped to turn the world’s attention to India’s rampant corruption.
January 2012, Volume 23, Issue 1
India’s Right to Information Act discourages corruption by giving every citizen the right to access information from any public authority.
July 2011, Volume 22, Issue 3
A review of The Quality of Democracy in Latin America, edited by Daniel H. Levine and José E. Molina.
October 2010, Volume 21, Issue 4
A group of countries in sub-Saharan Africa are showing they can sustain economic growth, reduce poverty, and achieve better governance at the same time.
July 2010, Volume 21, Issue 3
The 2010 presidential election shows that Ukraine is both a surprisingly stable electoral democracy and a disturbingly corrupt one. The corruption, moreover, may have a lot to do with the stability.
April 2010, Volume 21, Issue 2
In emerging democracies and postconflict countries, improved policing is almost always urgently required. Yet international-assistance efforts in this area pay almost no attention to the crucial need to ensure that the new-model police are not only effective, but democracy-friendly.
January 2010, Volume 21, Issue 1
A coauthor of the pathbreaking study Transitions from Authoritarian Rule reflects on the lessons that he has learned about democratic transition and consolidation since the publication of this work nearly 25 years ago.
January 2010, Volume 21, Issue 1
Democracy has held its own or gained ground in just about every part of the world except for the Arab Middle East. Why has this crucial region remained such infertile soil for democracy?
January 2010, Volume 21, Issue 1
The central problems now blocking democracy in Georgia and other parts of the former USSR are: 1) the use of power in order to gain wealth; 2) the absence of the rule of law; and 3) the passivity of citizens.
October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
The recent global progress of democracy has been accompanied by increasing economic inequality. What are the implications for the quality of democracy and for its ability to endure?
October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
Democracy in India remains robust, but the scope and intensity of the corruption that pervades the political system are steadily eroding public trust.
October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
As countries emerge from war and embark on recovery, the risk of corruption is high and the consequences are dire. International aid must be accompanied by an anticorruption strategy that incorporates community-driven accountability.
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Read the full essay here. Some of the many China stories to attract attention recently have involved NIMBY (Not in My Backyard) protests by largely middle class crowds gathering to demand a greater say in urban development plans. This article argues that such protests a) are a significant addition to the already complex landscape of…
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Like all contemporary nondemocratic systems, the Chinese system suffers from weak legitimacy at the level of regime type. The most likely form of transition for China remains the model of Tiananmen, when three elements came together: a robust plurality of disaffected citizens, a catalytic event, and a split in the leadership. Had China chosen the…
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Due to weak opposition parties and presidential dominance, many African countries have not reaped the full benefits of regularly held elections.
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Despite increasing authoritarian tendencies at the national level, there are signs that Nicaragua has been making democratic advances at the local level.
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
The same policies that fostered decades of prosperity in Singapore have also led to longer-term economic ills that might have been averted in a freer society.
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
A fan of Mario Puzo’s Godfather novels will see the Putin government for what it is: a mafia.
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Read the full essay here. Arguably a flawed democracy in the 1990s, Russia took a distinctly authoritarian turn under President Vladimir Putin from 2000 to 2008. The country now lives under a façade democracy that barely conceals the political and administrative dominance of a self-interested bureaucratic corporation. The regime manufactures consent by means of three…
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 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Read the full essay here. The regime in Moscow mixes key features of a capitalist economy with a political system wherein power is monopolized by a close-knit professional and age cohort whose members often have a background in the secret police. Instead of seeking to base its legitimacy on broad-based, transpersonal institutions with character and…
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Since Vladimir Putin’s rise to power at the end of the 1990s, siloviki—the people who work for, or used to work for, Russia’s “ministries of force” have spread to posts throughout all the branches of power in Russia.
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Will Hugo Chávez’s victory in the 15 February 2009 vote to end term limits enable him to drive Venezuela toward “Bolivarian socialism”? There are reasons to doubt this, but for now democracy’s prospects do not look encouraging.
January 2009, Volume 20, Issue 1
The case of Finland challenges conventional thinking on clean politics. Can it serve as a model for its more corrupt counterparts?
October 2008, Volume 19, Issue 4
The military is currently showing signs of wanting to back away from overt political involvement, but this should not be confused with a rejection of praetorianism or an acceptance of the principle of civilian supremacy.
July 2008, Volume 19, Issue 3
For years Kenya was regarded as one of Africa’s sturdiest democracies. The fraudulent 2007 presidential election, however, exposed the fragility of Kenya’s democratic framework.
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
Long an extreme case of institutionalized instability, Ecuador now has a dynamic young president who is determined to remake its constitution, and eventually its society, in the name of "twenty-first-century socialism."
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
Do young democracies have to "deliver the goods" economically in order to win political legitimacy in their citizens' eyes? Public opinion data from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Arab world suggest some fascinating answers.
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
Why has China's transition to democracy been so delayed, and what can be done to hasten it?
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
Despite sweeping political and constitutional changes in Africa, a notable feature of the ancien régime survives—the imperial presidency. African presidents may be term-limited, but they have not been tamed.
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
The legislature is emerging as a "player" in some African countries, though not in others. What is the relationship between legislative development and democratic consolidation in Africa?
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
Africa is a battleground between formal democratic institutions and rule by the will of the "big man." Civil society groups are waging this struggle, and technology is equipping them with surprising new tools.
January 2008, Volume 19, Issue 1
Five years after the close of a horrifying civil war, Sierra Leone held the freest elections in its history. Voters turned out the party that had overseen the war's end, blaming it for having mishandled governance since then.
January 2008, Volume 19, Issue 1
Asia's oldest democracy is sinking into a morass of corruption and scandal. The Philippines' president, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, continues to undermine the country's democratic institutions in order to remain in power.
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
Pervasive corruption hampers India's democracy, yet anticorruption movements may be helping to improve governmental accountability.
July 2006, Volume 17, Issue 3
Despite a significant expansion of citizenship over the last few decades, the Andean nations face a severe crisis of democratic representation. The root of the problem lies not in the mechanisms of representation but in poor state performance.
January 2006, Volume 17, Issue 1
Independent central banks throughout the former Soviet Union suffer from a dual democratic deficit. How can they gain greater democratic legitimacy without compromising their countries' economic health?
July 2005, Volume 16, Issue 3
What made the “color revolutions” of the early 2000s possible? There were 7 factors that allowed for these democratic breakthroughs. Today, Venezuela has 6 of them, and it may soon have the last one it needs
July 2005, Volume 16, Issue 3
The role of international factors varied greatly across the post-Cold War transitions to democracy, but the intensity and results of external democratizing pressure depended on two variables: linkage to the West and Western leverage.
July 2005, Volume 16, Issue 3
Natural-resource wealth has been at the root of Angola's corruption and authoritarianism. By giving leverage to those pushing for reform, however, it has also become a key factor in teh struggle for accountability.
April 2005, Volume 16, Issue 2
During the early years of south korea's transition to democracy, expanding popular rule and deepening individual rights went hand-in-hand. But Roh Moo Hyun's presiency has exposed rifts between majority rule and constitutionalism that the country's judiciary is struggling to bridge.
April 2005, Volume 16, Issue 2
Thanks to a disputed presidential election and a narrowly divided parliament, Taiwan's politics remains tense. Yet the worst of the conflicts that gripped the island seem to have eased, and the difficult political events of the last few years may have some beneficial effects after all.
April 2005, Volume 16, Issue 2
Despite the tsunami tragedy, Indonesians at least can look back on the political events of 2004 with pride. Their country successfully held three major elections and produced a legitimate government. Now the main challenge is to secure regular governmental accountability.
April 2005, Volume 16, Issue 2
In three of the six democracies surveyed by the East Asia Barometer, a majority of respondents prefer democracy to its alternatives. In the other three, however, a lingering nostalgia for authoritarianism stands in the way of democratic consolidation.
April 2005, Volume 16, Issue 2
Juan Linz’s 1990 critique of presidentialism in these pages was based largely on the Latin American experience. In the last few years, however, four new Asian democracies have encountered presidential crises. Does Linz’s work hold the secret to what has been ailing these regimes?
April 2005, Volume 16, Issue 2
Ukraine's opposition had been trying to oust President Leonid Kuchma's semi-authoritarian regime since its alleged involvement in the murder of journalist Georgi Gongadze in 2000. What brought success in 2004?
April 2005, Volume 16, Issue 2
Desperate to secure victory for its own candidate in the 2004 presidential election, the incumbent regime undertook an unprecedented campaign of blatant election fraud. But it had underestimated the citizenry that it was trying to deceive.
April 2005, Volume 16, Issue 2
This report is by Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, president of the Romanian Academic Society, who heads the Coalition for a Clean Parliament.
October 2004, Volume 15, Issue 4
Since most of the world’s sovereign states are now democracies, there is a growing scholarly focus on “good” or “better” democracy, and on how improvements can not only be measured, but encouraged.
October 2004, Volume 15, Issue 4
A ket to “modern representative political democracy” is accountability, but the task of assessing it must be carefully thought through.
October 2004, Volume 15, Issue 4
Freedom has always been integral to democracy. How to guard liberty is a question every democratic regime must answer.
October 2004, Volume 15, Issue 4
Responsiveness may be conceived as a series of linkages intended to ensure that governments respect the preferences of the governed.
July 2004, Volume 15, Issue 3
Post-Soviet Russia's future may well turn on the interplay of state power with the business interests that now form Russia's best hope for advances in political pluralism.
July 2004, Volume 15, Issue 3
Russia's liberal-democratic parties have failed. It is time for a new movement that can gain the trust of the Russian people by putting forward a full reform program based on liberal and democratic principles.
July 2004, Volume 15, Issue 3
Vladimir Putin aspires to be a classic authoritarian modernizer, but in today's globalized world Russia faces challenges that bureaucratic centralization and a traditional strong hand cannot meet.
October 2003, Volume 14, Issue 4
Europe faces a potentially dangerous “double bind”: The legitimacy of domestic democracy in the member states is waning, and citizens are increasingly unhappy with the EU’s lack of accountability—but the new draft Constitution fails to address the problem.
July 2003, Volume 14, Issue 3
Liberty and self-government are not only good in themselves, but also have powerful and beneficial effects on a nation’s level of economic development and prosperity.
July 2003, Volume 14, Issue 3
The election cycle concluding in the spring of 2003 was a guarded success. High hurdles to better governance and democratic consolidation remain, but Nigerians can now face them with greater hope.
January 2003, Volume 14, Issue 1
Despite today’s gridlock, there are grounds for hope in the widespread embrace of democratic ideals by young people.
October 2002, Volume 13, Issue 4
Saudi Arabia would seem to exemplify full-blown authoritarianism. Yet there are trends pushing the country toward more open politics.
April 2002, Volume 13, Issue 2
In recent years, new types of nondemocratic government have come to the fore,notably competitive authoritarianism.Such regimes, though not democratic,feature arenas of contestation in which opposition forces can challenge,and even oust,authoritarian incumbents.
April 2002, Volume 13, Issue 2
Today, Africa south of the Sahara has a relatively small number of both democracies and full-blown dictatorships,along with a large number of hard-to-define regimes that fit neither category.
January 2001, Volume 12, Issue 1
Under many nondemocratic systems, good policy is bad politics, and bad policy helps leaders stay in office. The result is poorer performance in terms of economic growth.
January 2001, Volume 12, Issue 1
The stunning defeat of a draft constitution backed by President Robert Mugabe and the opposition’s unexpectedly strong showing in the June 2000 parliamentary elections may have marked the beginning of the end of ruling-party hegemony in Zimbabwe.
October 2000, Volume 11, Issue 4
The uneasy accommodation of competing visions of authority that has characterized Iran’s political system since 1979 is a familiar phenomenon in the Middle East and elsewhere.
October 2000, Volume 11, Issue 4
Four excerpts from the Iranian press-on elections and democracy and on religious intolerance and intellectual pluralism-suggest the extent to which democratic thinking has gained a foothold in Iran.
October 2000, Volume 11, Issue 4
Recent studies of democracy in Latin America overlook the role of civil society as an agent of accountability.
July 2000, Volume 11, Issue 3
Democracy is spreading everywhere except in the Arab world. Arab elections are an immense masquerade. Corrupt dictatorships seek to stifle freedom of thought and to control the flow of information.
July 2000, Volume 11, Issue 3
While despotic Arab regimes may seem stable, change is brewing beneath the surface. A new era is emerging in which the state will be forced to retreat before a vibrant civil society.
July 2000, Volume 11, Issue 3
Pakistan’s descent into authoritarian rule starkly depicts the “triple crisis of governance” that threatens many third-wave democracies. If these problems of governance are not addressed, a new “reverse wave” of democratization could be imminent.
April 2000, Volume 11, Issue 2
The political dimensions of the 1997-99 Asian financial crisis have been largely ignored. Yet political factors are crucial to understanding the crisis and the differing ways in which the democracies and authoritarian regimes in the region responded to it.
January 2000, Volume 11, Issue 1
The Editors’ introduction to “Democracy in the World.”
