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.
Subject: Corruption
January 2022, Volume 33, Issue 1
Kyrgyzstan’s Poison Parliament
Kyrgyzstan’s parliamentary-style constitution was a democratic bright spot in Central Asia. But the legislature quickly devolved into a corrupt bazaar, dimming its democratic prospects.
October 2021, Volume 32, Issue 4
How Authoritarians Win When They Lose
Turkey’s ruling party has developed a new tool: When its local candidates lose, it dismisses them and appoints its own choice under a guise that maintains the veneer of democracy. It is an autocratic innovation that may soon spread.
July 2021, Volume 32, Issue 3
Latin America Erupts: Ecuador’s Return to the Past
Reformist leaders offered order, stability, and progress. But the country’s deep-seated political pathologies have proven far more durable than their promises.
July 2021, Volume 32, Issue 3
Latin America Erupts: Peru Goes Populist
Instead of ending the instability that has seen the country have four presidents in three years, Peru’s presidential election has left the country on a razor-thin edge.
July 2021, Volume 32, Issue 3
Latin America Erupts: The Danger of Democratic Delinquency
Recent high-profile scandals have laid bare persistent shortcomings of Latin American democracy that, if unaddressed, could prove fatal.
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
Why Strongmen Win in Weak States
While analysts of populism have focused on economic woes and “cultural backlash,” a thirst for the restoration of order may better explain the appeal of authoritarian populists in fragile democracies where governance is falling short.
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
Covid vs. Democracy: South Africa’s Lockdown Misfire
South Africa’s government sought to heed expert advice with its covid lockdown, yet shortcomings in state capacity fatally undermined both the virus response and efforts to address its devastating economic toll.
January 2020, Volume 31, Issue 1
The Rise and Fall of Good-Governance Promotion
Anticorruption has become universally accepted as a norm; that may tell us something about why it struggles in practice.
January 2020, Volume 31, Issue 1
Russia’s Ukraine Obsession
Lacking any ideas for shoring up Russian society, Putin has settled on picking a fight with Ukraine.
October 2019, Volume 30, Issue 4
Resisting State Capture in South Africa
Despite the lack of electoral turnover in ANC-ruled South Africa, the country’s successful resistance to efforts at “state capture” under former president Jacob Zuma testifies to the vitality of its democracy.
July 2019, Volume 30, Issue 3
The Rise of an “Outsider” President
A comic actor’s triumph in Ukraine’s free and competitive 2019 presidential race reflects distrust of establishment elites and a deep desire for change.
April 2019, Volume 30, Issue 2
Armenia’s Velvet Revolution
In 2018, a peaceful protest movement brought down Armenia’s semiauthoritarian government and ushered in a new political era, the culmination of a long struggle for national pride, self-determination, and democracy.
January 2019, Volume 30, Issue 1
Bolsonaro and Brazil’s Illiberal Backlash
The triumph of far-right populist Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil’s October 2018 presidential election was made possible by a series of economic, social, and political crises that have shaken Brazilian democracy.
October 2018, Volume 29, Issue 4
The Downfall of Malaysia’s Ruling Party
In Malaysia’s May 2018 general election, a grand bargain between ex–prime minister Mahathir Mohamad and reform leader Anwar Ibrahim produced a political earthquake that ended 61 years of rule by the United Malays National Organization (UMNO).
July 2018, Volume 29, Issue 3
Explaining Eastern Europe: Romania’s Italian-Style Anticorruption Populism
In Romania today, as in Italy twenty years ago, the gradual politicization of anticorruption has come to shape the political scene.
April 2018, Volume 29, Issue 2
Brazil: The Costs of Multiparty Presidentialism
The massive corruption revealed by Brazil’s “Operation Car Wash” points to fundamental flaws in multiparty presidential systems, where presidents must find ways to build coalitions in fragmented legislatures.
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
The Rise of Kleptocracy: Autocrats versus Activists in Africa
Central African autocrats are using their stolen money to outmaneuver their opponents and deflect international criticism.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
The Rise of Kleptocracy: Malaysia’s Missing Billions
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
The Rise of Kleptocracy: Power and Plunder in Putin’s Russia
Russia’s ruling elite have used corruption not only to line their own pockets, but also as a tool of domestic political control and global power projection.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
The Rise of Kleptocracy: Does China Fit the Model?
China has seen a staggering number of official corruption cases in recent years. But does it merit the label of kleptocracy?
October 2017, Volume 28, Issue 4
The Kremlin Emboldened: What Is Putinism?
Under Vladimir Putin, Russia’s ruling class again claims to represent a superior alternative to liberal democracy. How can we theorize this regime? Putinism is a form of autocracy that is conservative, populist, and personalistic. Its conservatism means that Putinism prioritizes maintaining the status quo and avoiding instability. Conservatism also overlaps with Putinism’s populism in crowd-pleasing broadsides against gay rights and feminism, but gives…
October 2017, Volume 28, Issue 4
The Kremlin Emboldened: Why Putinism Arose
This essay argues that the sources of the current revival of Russian authoritarianism lie in the country’s economic and political history. Among the major factors behind President Putin’s rise and consolidation of power, it cites an ideological overemphasis on the state that fosters hostility toward human rights and liberties; deeply rooted attitudes that cast the…
October 2017, Volume 28, Issue 4
South Korea After Impeachment
After a presidential corruption scandal sparked peaceful mass protests leading to the impeachment and removal of the incumbent, South Koreans went to the polls to choose her successor. Was this drama a window on the troubles of South Korean democracy, or a testament to its strength and resilience?
October 2017, Volume 28, Issue 4
Elections in the Hardest Places: The Case of Somalia
Is pressing a troubled, intensely fragile “postconflict” country to hold elections a good idea? Somalia did so in late 2016 and early 2017, and the process was not pretty. But was it better than the alternative?
July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3
Central Asia’s Globalized Despots
A review of Dictators Without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia by Alexander Cooley and John Heathershaw.
April 2017, Volume 28, Issue 2
Nicaragua: A Return to Caudillismo
With the ruling FSLN’s one-sided triumph in the November 2016 elections, Nicaraguan democracy underwent further erosion. The emerging authoritarian party-state, far from being a leftist revolutionary government, is becoming a neopatrimonial dictatorship in an older Latin American style.
January 2017, Volume 28, Issue 1
Tunisia’s Islamists and the “Turkish Model”
Ennahda has long felt an especially strong kinship with Turkey’s AKP, which has seen as representing a combination of piety, prosperity, and democratic credibility. How might their relationship be affected by the AKP's more recent authoritarian turn?
October 2016, Volume 27, Issue 4
Iraq’s Year of Rage
Iraqis of all ethnic and sectarian stripes are fed up with the ineptitude and corruption of their political leaders, parties, and government institutions.
October 2016, Volume 27, Issue 4
Particularism’s Empire
A review of The Quest for Good Governance: How Societies Develop Control of Corruption by Alina Mungiu-Pippidi.
April 2016, Volume 27, Issue 2
Latin America’s New Turbulence: Crisis and Integrity in Brazil
Public anger at revelations of widespread corruption, along with the rising cost of coalition politics, has brought Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff to the brink of impeachment. Yet the crisis has also revealed the strength of the country’s law-enforcement and judicial institutions.
April 2016, Volume 27, Issue 2
Latin America’s New Turbulence: Trouble in the “Northern Triangle”
Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador are weighed down by high crime, sluggish economies, and heavy reliance on remittances. And when significant political change has taken place, it has resulted in frightening political fragmentation.
January 2016, Volume 27, Issue 1
The Quest for Good Governance: Learning from Virtuous Circles
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?
January 2016, Volume 27, Issue 1
The Quest for Good Governance: Georgia’s Break with the Past
Much can be done to uproot graft when a major event such as the Rose Revolution sweeps in a determined new team on a wave of massive public support.
April 2015, Volume 26, Issue 2
Stealing Russia Blind
A review of Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia? by Karen Dawisha.
October 2014, Volume 25, Issue 4
Indonesia’s 2014 Elections: Parliament and Patronage
Indonesia’s 2014 legislative elections went smoothly. Yet the “money politics” that featured so heavily in these contests suggests a grave need to reform the country’s electoral system.
July 2014, Volume 25, Issue 3
The Maidan and Beyond: Oligarchs, Corruption, and European Integration
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.
January 2014, Volume 25, Issue 1
The Legacies of 1989: The Transformative Power of Europe Revisited
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 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
Controlling Corruption Through Collective Action
Political competition by itself does not curb corruption. Societies must also have a combination of values, social capital, civil society, and civic culture in order to impose effective normative constraints on corruption.
April 2012, Volume 23, Issue 2
Southeast Asia: Minding the Gap Between Democracy and Governance
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
China and East Asian Democracy: Is CCP Rule Fragile or Resilient?
Is “authoritarian resilience” in China a passing phenomenon, or is it something more durable?
January 2012, Volume 23, Issue 1
Corruption in India: An Enduring Threat
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
Corruption in India: Can the Right to Information Help?
India’s Right to Information Act discourages corruption by giving every citizen the right to access information from any public authority.
October 2010, Volume 21, Issue 4
Reformism vs. Populism in the Philippines
May 2010, Benigno Aquino III bested a crowded field to win the presidency. The election, which was remarkably clean and orderly, gave a clear victory to the reformist narrative that has long vied with populism in the Philippines.
July 2010, Volume 21, Issue 3
Ukraine: The Uses of Divided Power
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.
July 2010, Volume 21, Issue 3
Election Observers and Their Biases
Why do election monitors sometimes issue contradictory statements or endorse flawed elections? The answers are not always straightforward; in some cases, the monitors’ good intentions may undermine their credibility.
April 2010, Volume 21, Issue 2
The Ballot and the Badge: Democratic Policing
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.
April 2010, Volume 21, Issue 2
Trouble in Central America: Honduras Unravels
A Central American military once again returned to the political center stage in 2009, but this had less to do with power-hungry generals than with warring civilian elites whose respect for liberal-democratic principles proved to be questionable at best.
April 2010, Volume 21, Issue 2
Trouble in Central America: Guatemala on the Brink
Strange and unsettling turns of events further roiled the already-troubled waters of Guatemalan political life in 2009, driving the crime-ridden country’s shaky democracy to the brink.
April 2010, Volume 21, Issue 2
Mozambique’s Slide into One Party Rule
Once touted as a regional success story, Mozambique has been backsliding toward one-party-dominant rule, and has now slipped off the Freedom House list of electoral democracies. How and why did this happen?
January 2010, Volume 21, Issue 1
Twenty Years of Postcommunism: Georgia’s Soviet Legacy
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.
January 2010, Volume 21, Issue 1
Twenty Years of Postcommunism: What’s the Matter with Russia?
The author analyses the confluence of several elements that helped to set Russia’s course: the influence of history; the challenges of the transformation process itself; the importance of leadership; and the role of the West.
October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
Iran in Ferment: Cracks in the Regime
The Islamic Republic is struggling, with the Revolutionary Guard Corps more and more the only thing propping it up.
October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy (II): Aiding Latin America’s Poor
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.
October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
India’s 2009 Elections: The Problem of Corruption
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
A New Approach to Postwar Reconstruction
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.
October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
An Accidental Advance? South Africa’s 2009 Elections
The ANC saw its first-ever decline in vote share in South Africa's 2009 parliamentary elections. Will the ANC heed this warning to mend internal divisions and reconnect with voters?
October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
Tanzania’s Missing Opposition
The country's long-ruling party has never faced a serious electoral challenge—due not only to opposition weakness but also to a deliberate strategy of suppression.
October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
Angola’s Façade Democracy
Parliamentary elections in 2008 secured the MPLA's hegemony and decimated the opposition, while paradoxically increasing the government's legitimacy.
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Bangladesh’s Fresh Start
After a nearly two-year interlude of authoritarian rule, Bangladeshis voted decisively for democracy, a secular approach to politics, and the center-left. The challenge now is to show that parliamentary democracy can deliver stability and socioeconomic progress.
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Malaysia’s Electoral Upheaval
In March 2008, Malaysian voters dealt the long-ruling National Front coalition an enormous shock—pushing that party closer to losing power than it has ever been in Malaysia’s entire history as an independent country.
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Democratization by Elections? A Mixed Record
Evidence suggests that under some circumstances repeated elections, even if flawed, can lead to democratization.
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Democratization by Elections? Competitive Clientelism in the Middle East
Legislative elections in the Middle East often become contests over patronage and wind up reinforcing authoritarian regimes.
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Moldova’s “Twitter Revolution”
In April 2008, disputed election results in the tiny state of Moldova sparked violent protests and a harsh response from state authorities.
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
The Turnover in El Salvador
In March 2009, El Salvador saw its first peaceful alternation of power since independence, as the FMLN, a former guerilla movement that laid down its arms in 1992, finally won the presidency.
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Reading Russia: It’s No Mystery
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
Reading Russia: Tools of Autocracy
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 tools: information and propaganda campaigns…
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Reading Russia: The Dying Mutant
The corporatist kleptocracy being erected by Russian President Vladimir Putin is profoundly misunderstood in the West. This model dooms Russia to economic degradation and margin-alization. The current global crisis has made this truth painfully clear. The artificially created image of a threatening West (and U.S. in particular) is now becoming the sole ideological justification for…
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Reading Russia: Is There a Key?
Of all of the national republics that emerged out of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia has had the most profound difficulties in determining its national identity. What is the essence of being Russian, and where are the boundaries of the “Russian World”? There has never been a Russian national identity that was anything…
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Reading Russia: The Return of Personalized Power
In contrast to authoritarian power structures, which rest on a form of bureaucratic corporatism that makes the leader its hostage, the regime in Moscow rests on personalized power, something that signals a return to the traditional Russian political matrix. The regime has fused power and property in a manner that makes the oligarchs utterly dependent…
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Reading Russia: The Merger of Power and Property
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 integrity of their own, the…
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Reading Russia: The Siloviki in Charge
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
Hugo Chávez’s “Petro-Socialism”
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.
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Another Step Forward for Ghana
Ghana held its fourth successful elections in late 2008 and subsequently witnessed the peaceful handover of power from ruling party to opposition. The country’s leaders must now reform its institutions of governance.
January 2009, Volume 20, Issue 1
Illiberal Resilience in Serbia
Serbia has become a country where political contention is vigorous, but illiberal forces have shown an ability to adapt to the new conditions.
January 2009, Volume 20, Issue 1
The Curious Case of Finland’s Clean Politics
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
Zimbabwe’s Long Agony
Once hailed as liberators, Zimbabwe’s ruling party now clings to power through violent repression. How did the country’s founding father become its dictator, and what patterns in his party’s past foretold such an outcome?
October 2008, Volume 19, Issue 4
Georgia’s Year of Turmoil
A domestic political crisis began brewing in Georgia long before the current conflict with Russia. Since the Rose Revolution, the country has been troubled by flawed elections, a “superpresidency,” and a malleable constitution.
July 2008, Volume 19, Issue 3
The Crisis in Kenya
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
Politics, Markets, and Society in Lula’s Brazil
Brazil under Lula offers a test case of how politicians and societal interests in developing countries react when economic growth and new possibilities change the name of the game from shock and scarcity to boom and prosperity.
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
Ecuador: Correa’s Plebiscitary Presidency
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
The 2007 Freedom House Survey: Is the Tide Turning?
Authoritarian pushback continued to affect key regions and countries in 2007, but the courage, energy, and creativity that democrats continued to show gives reason to think that their cause has brighter days ahead.
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
China: From Prison to Freedom
Why has China's transition to democracy been so delayed, and what can be done to hasten it?
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
Progress and Retreat in Africa: Challenges of a “Frontier” Region
In Africa today, investment flows in and civil societies grow stronger, yet many of the continent's leaders continue to behave autocratically, defending their privileges against the spread of law-based rule.
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
Progress and Retreat in Africa: Presidents Untamed
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
Progress and Retreat in Africa: Legislatures on the Rise?
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
Progress and Retreat in Africa: The Rule of Law versus the Big Man
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
Sierra Leone: A Vote for Better Governance
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
The Arroyo Imbroglio in the Philippines
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.
January 2008, Volume 19, Issue 1
Senegal: The Return of Personalism
Senegal's 2000 presidential election marked the end of forty years of one-party rule. But the reign of President Wade has been a severe disappointment, dashing hopes for democratic consolidation. *This is a corrected text of the print and original online version of this essay, portions of which drew heavily on Tarik Dahou and Vincent Foucher's…
October 2007, Volume 18, Issue 4
Is East-Central Europe Backsliding? From Democracy Fatigue to Populist Backlash
The populist backlash against corruption, the CEE transition-era elites, and the liberal consensus has led to a democratic crisis, but does not portend systemic change.
October 2007, Volume 18, Issue 4
Is East-Central Europe Backsliding? The Political-Party Landscape
The real danger in East-Central Europe comes not from populist ideology or attempts to subvert democracy, but rather from the manipulation of democratic procedures by those in power.
October 2007, Volume 18, Issue 4
Nigeria’s Muddled Elections
The failure of the elections has been partly mitigated by the hope of judicial review of electoral malfeasance, the stabilizing ingenuity of ethno-regional power-sharing, and renewed national discussions of electoral reforms.
July 2007, Volume 18, Issue 3
Personalizing Power in Uganda
For more than two decades, President Yoweri Museveni has been building an authoritarian regime that answers closely to his personal will.
July 2007, Volume 18, Issue 3
When Will the Chinese People Be Free?
Rising levels of wealth and schooling make it highly likely that China will be a "Partly Free" country by 2015 and a "Free" one ten years after that.
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
India’s Unlikely Democracy: Civil Society Versus Corruption
Pervasive corruption hampers India's democracy, yet anticorruption movements may be helping to improve governmental accountability.