July 2024, Volume 35, Issue 3
LGBT+ rights are under threat across the globe. Populist leaders stirring fear and animosity for political gain understand how democratic institutions can be harnessed and manipulated to curtail these rights, not enshrine them.
April 2024, Volume 35, Issue 2
Around the world, democracy has lost steam. If we are to regain the momentum, we must harness these essential elements and wage the struggle with the conviction that the times demand.
April 2024, Volume 35, Issue 2
Malawi is a “hard place” for democracy—its economy struggles and state capacity is weak. So how has it avoided the pitfalls that have doomed so many others?
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
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 2020, Volume 31, Issue 1
Democracies are grappling with an era of transformation: Identity is increasingly replacing economics as the major axis of world politics. Technological change has deepened social fragmentation, and trust in institutions is falling. As our most basic assumptions come under question, can liberal democracy rebuild itself?
January 2020, Volume 31, Issue 1
In recent years competitive authoritarianism has emerged in some countries with relatively strong democratic traditions and institutions.
January 2020, Volume 31, Issue 1
The mass protests that have taken place in 2019 in Hong Kong and elsewhere show that people’s desire for liberty cannot be extinguished.
January 2020, Volume 31, Issue 1
It is imperative to rethink how democracy support fits into today’s turbulent and threatening international political landscape.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
A review of Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom by Condoleezza Rice.
January 2015, Volume 26, Issue 1
From small beginnings, democracy aid has become a sizeable enterprise. Today it is beset by problems, however, as it must operate in a less friendly environment. Hard decisions will need to be made to maintain its relevance.
October 2014, Volume 25, Issue 4
Levitsky and Way’s account of linkage and leverage leaves out the key role of “gatekeeper” elites.
October 2014, Volume 25, Issue 4
Advancing the democratic cause is threatening to autocrats, and they will fight back.
October 2014, Volume 25, Issue 4
Linkage and leverage largely reflect long-term structural factors, and only in certain situations can they be affected by policy choices.
April 2014, Volume 25, Issue 2
Nelson Mandela, who died in late 2013, fought for freedom for all the people of South Africa and masterfully guided his country’s transition to a nonracial democracy. His record on foreign policy is more ambiguous, but also instructive.
April 2013, Volume 24, Issue 2
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?
April 2012, Volume 23, Issue 2
Among a new generation of international democracy promoters—often former recipients of democracy assistance themselves—Poland stands out. Its efforts, though mostly in its own neighborhood, show the importance of combining direct assistance with quiet diplomacy.
January 2012, Volume 23, Issue 1
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
Though justly vaunted as the world’s largest democracy, India will in all likelihood remain reluctant to take on the mantle of “democracy promoter” for a mix of historical, ideological, and strategic reasons.
October 2011, Volume 22, Issue 4
Since its transition to democracy barely a decade ago, Indonesia has begun projecting its newly democratic values across international borders. So far, however, its efforts have been largely rhetorical.
October 2011, Volume 22, Issue 4
Long an “ultrarealist” power, Turkey has over the last decade begun taking human rights and democracy more seriously as aspects of its diplomacy, albeit still in a decidedly selective way.
October 2011, Volume 22, Issue 4
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 2010, Volume 21, Issue 4
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.
October 2010, Volume 21, Issue 4
The development community now agrees with the democracy community that politics matters, but the two communities still differ in their understanding of what drives changes in institutions.
October 2010, Volume 21, Issue 4
Development specialists and democracy-support experts should recognize—and maximize—each other’s relative strengths and comparative advantages.
July 2010, Volume 21, Issue 3
A tribute to Václav Havel, Czech playwright and former dissident, who became not only president but the symbol of the “velvet revolutions.”
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.
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
For the past few decades, scholars have been focusing on the causes of democratization. It is now time to devote systematic attention to analyzing the costs and benefits that democracy brings.
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
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
Democracy-aid providers are moving away from one-size-fits-all strategies and are adapting their programs to diverse political contexts. Two distinct overall approaches to assisting democracy have emerged in response.
January 2009, Volume 20, Issue 1
A decade after the handover of their city to China, Hong Kong’s “pandemocrats” remain able to stand their ground at the ballot box.
January 2009, Volume 20, Issue 1
While the belief in democracy has spread around the world, it has begun to crumble in some of the West’s finest academic institutions.
October 2008, Volume 19, Issue 4
Many of today’s developing-world and postcommunist democracies are at risk of reversal. What are the key factors that lead to democratic collapse?
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 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
In recent years, European aid in support of political development has been on the rise. What kind of programs have these funds been supporting, and where are they being spent?
October 2007, Volume 18, Issue 4
Observers who focus too much on elections have failed to grasp the maturation of Iranian civil society, even as hard-liners have come to dominate the government.
October 2007, Volume 18, Issue 4
They are good signs for the future of democracy in Iran, but it will take time and energy to organize these promising pieces into a greater democracy movement.
October 2007, Volume 18, Issue 4
On 7 June 2007, the National Endowment for Democracy commemorated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the "Westminster Address" with a panel discussion and reception in Madison Hall at the Library of Congress.
October 2007, Volume 18, Issue 4
A review of Inside Iraq's Confessional Politics by Junning Liu.
July 2007, Volume 18, Issue 3
Countries taking the initial steps from dictatorship toward electoral politics are especially prone to civil and international war. Yet states endowed with coherent institutions—such as a functioning bureaucracy and the elements needed to construct a sound legal system—have often been able to democratize peacefully and successfully. Consequently, whenever possible, efforts to promote democracy should try…
July 2007, Volume 18, Issue 3
In certain circumstances, both liberalism and popular rule can obstruct rather than promote state-building.
July 2007, Volume 18, Issue 3
The history of many of today’s established democracies shows that “out-of-sequence” democratization can lead to eventual success.
July 2007, Volume 18, Issue 3
Unlike pessimistic scholars and recalcitrant autocrats, most ordinary citizens are inclined to take the risks of choosing democracy when they can.
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
Much has been achieved both in the war against the Taliban and in the larger struggle to create a democratic Afghanistan, but dire problems remain.
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
The Putin regime is plunging Russia into a deepening crisis. It is time to end the fiction that today's Russia is a democracy.
January 2007, Volume 18, Issue 1
Many critics of democracy promotion assert that the rule of law and a well-functioning state should be in place before a society democratizes, but this strategy of "sequencing" is based on a set of mistaken premises.
January 2007, Volume 18, Issue 1
Those who argue that democracy requires preconditions often cite the example of gradual unfolding set by the established democracies. A glance at history, however, shows that even today's most placid democracies have "backstories" as turbulent as anything found in the developing world today.
April 2006, Volume 17, Issue 2
Authoritarians are stepping up their offensive against democracy promotion, and democracy-assistance organizations will have to meet the challenge.
January 2006, Volume 17, Issue 1
Strategies based on transition pacts that reduce rulers' risks and cushion their retreat from total power may be the most promising route to democracy in the Arab world.
January 2006, Volume 17, Issue 1
Burundi's leaders are learning to embrace a culture of discussion and consensus that offers a way out of the abyss of civil war.
October 2005, Volume 16, Issue 4
What can be done with regimes that proclaim their devotion to democratic principles but violate them in practice?
October 2005, Volume 16, Issue 4
Having drawn lessons from the downfall of some of his fellow autocrats, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka is preventing the emergence of an effective democratic movement in Belarus.
October 2005, Volume 16, Issue 4
While Cambodia is often thought of as a “transitional” democracy and as a case where UN intervention succeeded, the truth is quite different.
July 2005, Volume 16, Issue 3
Even after its successful elections, Iraq remains a divided society. Democracy did not create these divisions, but it could be the key to managing them.
July 2005, Volume 16, Issue 3
A review of The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror by Natan Sharansky
April 2005, Volume 16, Issue 2
Seymour Martin Lipset’s contributions to political science and sociology are not theoretical achievements alone, but reflect his keenly practical moral awareness, his understanding of leadership, and his great love of democracy as the finest form of government ever devised.
April 2005, Volume 16, Issue 2
The incentives created by competitive elections in a number of Muslim-majority countries are fueling a political trend that roughly resembles the rise of Christian Democracy in twentieth-century Europe
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
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
A review of The Democratic Century by Seymour Martin Lipset and Jason M. Lakin.
April 2005, Volume 16, Issue 2
A review of The Democratic Advantage: How Democracies Promote Prosperity and Peace by Morton H. Halperin, Joseph T. Siegle, and Michael M. Weinstein.
January 2005, Volume 16, Issue 1
Why has the European Union, which has been so successful in transforming its candidate countries, failed in its efforts to promote democracy and development in Bosnia and Kosovo?
January 2005, Volume 16, Issue 1
World events-recent, current, and almost certainly to come-drive home the truth that before there can be a democratic state, there must first be a functioning state, period. Creating workable states where they have been destroyed or have barely existed yields to none among the challenges of our time.
January 2005, Volume 16, Issue 1
Like many other world-government bodies, the International Monetary Fund is a necessarily nondemocratic organitzation that cannot help but have an impact on democracy’s prospects in poorer countries.
July 2004, Volume 15, Issue 3
President Vladimir Putin's lopsided election victory was assisted by an unlevel electoral playing field, but elections still matter in Russia and they will make more difficult the consolidation of authoritarianism.
July 2004, Volume 15, Issue 3
Hopes for democratization now rest on the shoulders of the young. Who are they, what do they believe, and what are their political leanings? Survey data offer some clues.
July 2004, Volume 15, Issue 3
Over the ten years since its first nonracial elections in 1994, South Africa has seen its democratic order become more firmly institutionalized, even as the electoral dominance of the ANC has continued to grow.
April 2004, Volume 15, Issue 2
The twentieth century has been called "the American century," but it appears that the twenty-first may be dominated by anti-Americanism, an all-purpose ideology that poses a serious obstacle to the progress of democracy.
April 2004, Volume 15, Issue 2
Weak or failed states are at the root of many serious global problems, from poverty and AIDS to drug trafficking and terrorism, to the failure of democratic government itself. State-building must become a priority for the world community.
April 2004, Volume 15, Issue 2
Long wary of the modern state as such, the Roman Catholic church became a champion of democratic government around the time of Vatican II, and helped to set off the Thrird Wave of democratization.
April 2004, Volume 15, Issue 2
Historical and other evidence from around the world suggests that Protestantism has helped to create a web of mediating factors—from higher literacy to lower corruption to active civic groups—that encourage self-government.
April 2004, Volume 15, Issue 2
Orthodoxy’s difficult historical experiences have made it ambivalent toward democatic pluralism, but that may be changing, with believers in established democacies leading the way.
April 2004, Volume 15, Issue 2
That modern democracy first arose with the ambit of Western Christianity is far from an accident. Today, the major Christain communions largely support democracy, even while necessarily retaining the right to criticize democratic decisions in the name fo religious truth claims.
April 2004, Volume 15, Issue 2
A through, deliberat, and consultative constitution-making process, which takes account of key lessons learned in other countries, will be essential to the legitimacy of a new Iraqi constitution and to the future of democracy.
April 2004, Volume 15, Issue 2
Events last November confouned expectations set by the failure of democratization in Russia and other ex-Soviet republics, and should prompt new reflections on how fragile openings to democacy may be sustained and widened.
April 2004, Volume 15, Issue 2
The decision by Uganda’s leaders to abandon the country’s “movement” system and adopt multiparty pluralism creates a significant opportunity for democratic progress.
April 2004, Volume 15, Issue 2
East Timor, which emerged from a tragic and bloody past to gain full independence in 2002, offers a factinating case of democratization in a small developing country with a shallow history of democracy.
January 2004, Volume 15, Issue 1
The stakes are enormous and the challenges are difficult, but a look at Iraq months after the toppling of Saddam Hussein reveals that, despite all the frustrating setbacks, grounds for cautious optimism remain.
January 2004, Volume 15, Issue 1
As it prepares to go from 15 to 25 member states, the EU has improved the prospects for democracy in the East, but nothing about enlargement promises to resolve the vexing issue of democracy within the EU structure itself.
January 2004, Volume 15, Issue 1
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the involvement of NATO and the EU with their prospective new members has worked strongly in favor of democratic governance in Central and Eastern Europe.
October 2003, Volume 14, Issue 4
Building democracy at the supernational level is an unprecedented task, but so once was building democracy at the level of the modern state. And the progress of the EU in the last half-century has been remarkable.
October 2003, Volume 14, Issue 4
The rules that govern voting will always be of vital importance in any democracy. The beginning of wisdom is to turn from the usual focus on electoral systems in order to reflect on larger goals and the trade-offs among them that may be necessary.
October 2003, Volume 14, Issue 4
Civic education can enhance democratic values and participation among adults in young democracies, but the training must be frequent and participatory. Otherwise adult civic education may not be worth doing.
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
New data covering most of the 1990s reveal that democracy, even when minimally defined, has a potent independent impact that tends to reduce infant mortality and promote overall social well-being.
July 2003, Volume 14, Issue 3
Almost a half-century after being forced from their homeland, Tibetans abroad, led by the Dalai Lama, have democratized their institutions in hopes that they may one day form the basis for a free and self-governing Tibet.
July 2003, Volume 14, Issue 3
Democratic and ecnomic development will become sustainable in sub-Saharan Africa only with the emergence of coherent, legitimate and effective states.
July 2003, Volume 14, Issue 3
A review of Defending Democracy: A Global Survey of Foriegn Policy Trends 1992–2002, edited by Robert G. Herman and Theodore J. Piccone.
January 2003, Volume 14, Issue 1
To forestall a worst-case scenario, the U.S. and the world must make a deeper commitment to peacekeeping and decentralized government.
January 2003, Volume 14, Issue 1
The largely positive trends indicated in this year’s Freedom House Survey encourage cautious optimism on the occasion of its thirtieth anniversary.
January 2003, Volume 14, Issue 1
The “system of separations” is a historic achievement that must be defended even against normatively “purer” understandings of democracy.
January 2003, Volume 14, Issue 1
The vast obstacles to democratic reformism include basic provisions in the Constitution of the Islamic Republic itself.
October 2002, Volume 13, Issue 4
How well-founded are Western concerns that the nascent parliaments of Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain will be captured by antidemocratic Islamists and lead to the ‘Talibanization’ of the Gulf?
October 2002, Volume 13, Issue 4
What do Muslims think about democracy? Although reliable evidence is hard to come by, survey data from Central Asia open a window on this matter of vital concern in the Muslim world and beyond.
July 2002, Volume 13, Issue 3
Democracy promotion is a cause-oriented mission, but a good deal of hard-headed realism goes into program planning and work.
July 2002, Volume 13, Issue 3
A leading democracy specialist at the U.S. Agency for International Development defends his organization’s approach.
July 2002, Volume 13, Issue 3
The author of “The End of the Transition Paradigm” responds to each of his critics in turn.
July 2002, Volume 13, Issue 3
Until now, globalization and democratization have been mutually reinforcing, but in the future globalization may pose serious challenges for democracy.
July 2002, Volume 13, Issue 3
Talk about the Middle East and those who study it has become understandably heated. But we can learn more through a calm assessment of the achievements and weaknesses of this field.
July 2002, Volume 13, Issue 3
Is the field of Middle East studies as badly flawed as some critics charge? A fair-minded look at the last 10 or 15 years of research suggests otherwise.
