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Johns Hopkins Univ. Press

April 2009, Volume 20, Number 2

Religion and Democracy
Jean Bethke Elshtain
The secularization hypothesis has failed, and failed spectacularly. We must find a new paradigm to help us understand the complexities of the relationship between religion and democracy.

Singapore: Does Authoritarianism Pay?
Marco Verweij and Riccardo Pelizzo
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.

Reading Russia 

There is no consensus about the nature of the political system in Moscow today. Yet how one understands the motivations propelling Russian policy abroad depends on how one understands its regime at home.
  1. The Wounds of Lost Empire
    Ghia Nodia


  2. It's No Mystery
    Garry Kasparov


  3. Tools of Autocracy
    Vitali Silitski


  4. Forms Without Substance
    Archie Brown


  5. The Dying Mutant
    Andrei Piontkovsky


  6. Is There a Key?
    Nadia Diuk


  7. The Return of Personalized Power
    Lilia Shevtsova


  8. The Merger of Power and Property
    Leon Aron


  9. The Siloviki in Charge
    Andrei Illarionov


  10. The Rules of Survival
    Ivan Krastev
Hugo Chávez's "Petro-Socialism"
Manuel Hidalgo
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.

The 2008 Freedom House Survey

A Third Year of Decline
Arch Puddington
Although 2008 was marked by democratic setbacks as well as authoritarian “pushback” against reformers, democracy remains the only system of government that commands global respect.
NATO at Sixty
Zoltan Barany
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization played a key role in safeguarding Western democracy during the Cold War. With that conflict over, NATO must continually adapt and evolve in a fast-changing world.

The Consequences of Democratization
Giovanni Carbone
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.

Another Step Forward for Ghana
E. Gyimah-Boadi
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.

Kosovo: Independence and Tutelage
Oisín Tansey
In February 2008, Kosovo broke away from Serbia and declared its independence. But to what extent is it making progress toward its goals of sovereignty and democracy?

Books in Review

  • Tocqueville's Frontiers
    Ewa Atanassow
    A review of Conversations with Tocqueville: The Global Democratic Revolution in the Twenty-First Century edited by Aurelian Craiutu and Sheldon Gellar and Tocqueville et les frontières de la démocratie by Nestor Capdevila.

Election Watch

  • Reports on recent elections in Bangladesh, El Salvador, and Ghana.

Documents on Democracy

  • Excerpts from Charter 08, an open letter signed by more than three-hundred Chinese citizens calling for a political system in China based on human rights and democracy.


  • Portions of a January 10 ECOWAS statement condemning the military coup in Guinea that followed the death of President Lansana Conté on 22 December 2008.


  • Excerpts from the January 7 inauguration speech of new Ghanaian president John Evans Atta Mills, who defeated the ruling party's candidate in a 28 December 2008 runoff election.


  • Statements issued by the UN Security Council and the Presidency of the Council of the European Union commending the conduct of Iraq's January 31 provincial elections, which saw more than half the population turning out to vote for nearly fifteen-thousand candidates.

 
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