January 2010, Volume 21, Issue 1
Read the full essay here. The recent history of Eastern Europe can best be understood as a transition to a new social contract between the postcommunist state that emerged from its communist predecessor and the postcommunist citizen who evolved from the communist subject. It is the relationship between state and society under communism that best…
January 2010, Volume 21, Issue 1
The 1989 revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe were the triumph of civic dignity over Leninism. The first decade of postcommunism saw the project of an open society strongly challenged by ethnocratic temptations. The most important new idea brought about by the revolutions of 1989 was the rethinking and the restoration of citizenship.
January 2010, Volume 21, Issue 1
This is a central problem—perhaps the central problem—for classical liberal theory and its crucial distinction between the state of nature and the civil state. Which is better for liberty: nature or the state?
January 2010, Volume 21, Issue 1
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
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.
January 2010, Volume 21, Issue 1
By any measure, democratization has achieved remarkable advances over the past twenty years. Why, then, have so many of the leading works written on the topic during this period been so full of gloom?
January 2010, Volume 21, Issue 1
A tribute in remembrance of Leszek Kolakowski (1927–2009).
October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
Iran’s massive protest movement against June’s electoral coup is now moving into a new phase. What are its prospects?
October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
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
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 recent global progress of democracy has been accompanied by increasing economic inequality. What are the implications for the quality of democracy and for its ability to endure?
October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
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
The countries of Central and Eastern Europe have been struggling to devise approaches to political economy that can bring stability, prosperity, and a measure of equality in a world dominated by global finance and exchange.
October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
Both Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe have undergone significant democratization in recent years. Yet each region retains a distinctive approach, grounded in its own history, to common problems of social welfare and inequality.
October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
Indian voters pulled off a surprise by allowing the Congress party to retain power at the head of a more coherent coalition that is far less dependent on a congeries of small regional parties.
October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
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
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
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
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
Parliamentary elections in 2008 secured the MPLA's hegemony and decimated the opposition, while paradoxically increasing the government's legitimacy.
