July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Democratization by Elections? Postcommunist Ambiguities
Since 1996, eight postcommunist authoritarian rulers have been ousted by “electoral revolutions.” Why have these not succeeded in other postcommunist countries?
Articles
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Democratization by Elections? Opposition Weakness in Africa
Due to weak opposition parties and presidential dominance, many African countries have not reaped the full benefits of regularly held elections.
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Democratization by Elections? Competitive Clientelism in the Middle East
Legislative elections in the Middle East often become contests over patronage and wind up reinforcing authoritarian regimes.
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Moldova’s “Twitter Revolution”
In April 2008, disputed election results in the tiny state of Moldova sparked violent protests and a harsh response from state authorities.
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
The Turnover in El Salvador
In March 2009, El Salvador saw its first peaceful alternation of power since independence, as the FMLN, a former guerilla movement that laid down its arms in 1992, finally won the presidency.
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Nicaragua: Progress amid Regress?
Despite increasing authoritarian tendencies at the national level, there are signs that Nicaragua has been making democratic advances at the local level.
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Arms and the Humanitarian
A review of Freedom’s Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention by Gary J. Bass.
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Samuel P. Huntington (1927–2008)
A tribute in remembrance of Samuel P. Huntington (1927–2008).
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Religion and Democracy
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
Singapore: Does Authoritarianism Pay?
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.
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Reading Russia: The Wounds of Lost Empire
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.
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Reading Russia: It’s No Mystery
A fan of Mario Puzo’s Godfather novels will see the Putin government for what it is: a mafia.
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Reading Russia: Tools of Autocracy
Read the full essay here. Arguably a flawed democracy in the 1990s, Russia took a distinctly authoritarian turn under President Vladimir Putin from 2000 to 2008. The country now lives under a façade democracy that barely conceals the political and administrative dominance of a self-interested bureaucratic corporation. The regime manufactures consent by means of three…
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Reading Russia: Forms Without Substance
Read the full essay here. Twenty years ago, there was a more thoroughgoing political pluralism in Russia than there is today. In some respects, the forms of democracy-including party consolidation-have been enhanced, but they have been so manipulated as to deprive them of substance. Either “electoral authoritarianism” of “multiparty authoritarianism” (Juan Linz’s terms) may reasonably…
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Reading Russia: The Dying Mutant
Read the full essay here. The corporatist kleptocracy being erected by Russian President Vladimir Putin is profoundly misunderstood in the West. This model dooms Russia to economic degradation and margin-alization. The current global crisis has made this truth painfully clear. The artificially created image of a threatening West (and U.S. in particular) is now becoming…
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Reading Russia: Is There a Key?
Read the full essay here. Of all of the national republics that emerged out of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia has had the most profound difficulties in determining its national identity. What is the essence of being Russian, and where are the boundaries of the “Russian World”? There has never been a Russian…
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Reading Russia: The Return of Personalized Power
Read the full essay here. In contrast to authoritarian power structures, which rest on a form of bureaucratic corporatism that makes the leader its hostage, the regime in Moscow rests on personalized power, something that signals a return to the traditional Russian political matrix. The regime has fused power and property in a manner that…
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Reading Russia: The Merger of Power and Property
Read the full essay here. The regime in Moscow mixes key features of a capitalist economy with a political system wherein power is monopolized by a close-knit professional and age cohort whose members often have a background in the secret police. Instead of seeking to base its legitimacy on broad-based, transpersonal institutions with character and…
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Reading Russia: The Siloviki in Charge
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
Reading Russia: The Rules of Survival
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…