October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
When students and other rights activists decided to seize a tactical opening that the regime cynically offered them during the 2009 campaign, they were making a choice that was even more fateful than they knew.
October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
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?
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
In the two decades since the Tiananmen massacre, China has enjoyed rapid economic growth and a measure of political stability. Recently, however, various forms of popular protest have been increasing. Do they represent a potentially serious threat to CCP rule?
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
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.
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
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.
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
The image of Putin’s Russia as an authoritarian oil state attracts many Western analysts because it seems to carry a promise that falling oil prices will bring regime change. Thus, many were convinced that a major economic crisis would force the Kremlin either to open up the system and allow more pluralism and competition, or…
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
The opposition within Cuba has become more diverse as well as more unified, and the regime, despite its enduring capacity for repression, is showing signs of underlying weakness.
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
Torn between populism and those who fail to respect democratic limits in combating it, Thailand badly needs to locate a middle ground where the best of its old traditions can help it adjust to the new challenges that it faces.
October 2008, Volume 19, Issue 4
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 rise of Islamist parties poses new challenges to efforts to understand the relationship between Islam and democracy. A diverse group of authors investigates this new phenomenon and its implications for the future of democracy in the Middle East.
July 2008, Volume 19, Issue 3
The rise of Islamist parties poses new challenges to efforts to understand the relationship between Islam and democracy. A diverse group of authors investigates this new phenomenon and its implications for the future of democracy in the Middle East.
July 2008, Volume 19, Issue 3
The “color revolutions” in the postcommunist countries cannot be attributed to diffusion alone. Structural factors offer a better explanation of why such revolutions have succeeded in some countries and not in others.
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
Just as Russia's leaders pretend that they are ruling over a democracy, they also pretend that they are ruling over an empire.
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
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.
January 2008, Volume 19, Issue 1
Events surrounding Turkey's 2007 elections reveal a country with a vibrantly democratic political sphere and a society badly split over the role of Islam in national life.
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.
