Subject: Natural resources | Journal of Democracy

January 2025, Volume 36, Issue 1

Resisting the Authoritarian Temptation

Democracy’s unique, flexible, and substantial resources make it better than authoritarianism at confronting climate change.

January 2025, Volume 36, Issue 1

How to Confront No Ordinary Danger

Ross Mittiga

Climate change is an urgent and unparalleled threat. Our best hope lies in radical, principled activism — at once more democratic and more authoritarian.

January 2025, Volume 36, Issue 1

A Strange Defense of Climate Democracy

Elisabeth Ellis

The democracy versus “eco-authoritarianism” dilemma is false. The answer is more and better democracy.

January 2025, Volume 36, Issue 1

The Perils of Climate Alarmism

Thea Riofrancos

Democracies — facing gridlock and polarization — often fall short. But it should be remembered that dictatorships do even more harm.

January 2025, Volume 36, Issue 1

Confronting Our Common Enemy

Regime type is important, but it is the power of the fossil-fuel industry in both autocracies and democracies that is blocking the green transition globally.

January 2025, Volume 36, Issue 1

A Reply to Our Critics

The authors identify and respond to four broad themes in the Climate Crisis debate.

January 2024, Volume 35, Issue 1

How Ukraine Divides Postcommunist Europe

Anna Grzymała-Busse

In East-Central Europe, neither physical proximity nor memories of Soviet domination have united countries in their response to the war in Ukraine. What matters most is who stands to benefit.

April 2013, Volume 24, Issue 2

Lessons from Latin America: The Rise of Rentier Populism

Sebastián L. Mazzuca

Latin America’s much-discussed political “left turn” has taken two very different forms. Why has the region’s commodities boom led some left-turn states to move toward “plebiscitarian superpresidentialism,” while others have resisted this temptation?

July 2012, Volume 23, Issue 3

Oil, Politics, and Ghana’s Democracy

Ghana has won praise for its steady progress toward democratic consolidation. In late 2010 it joined the ranks of the world’s oil producers. Will the democratic institutions be able to resist the “resource curse”?

July 1997, Volume 8, Issue 3