October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
The share of Ukrainians who endorse democracy as the best form of government has risen fast in short order, standing now at more than three-quarters. New data reveal a surprising explanation behind this remarkable shift.
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
Opposition movements often boycott rigged polls rather than risk legitimizing an autocrat. It is usually a mistake. Here is the playbook for how one opposition seized the advantage.
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
Future state-building missions must learn from the failure of past U.S. interventions: It is critical to work with local power-brokers rather than relying on a centralized state.
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
Many fear that coups are making a comeback. While this is not true, one thing is alarming: Anti-coup norms are starting to erode.
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
A recent wave of wins for abortion rights—the “green tide” in Argentina, Mexico, and Colombia—owes its success to framing the issue as a matter of human rights.
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
The BJP has won two successive national elections, but it refuses to respect the rights of Muslims. Is democracy on a collision course with liberalism?
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
While a handful of democracies have responded effectively to this corrosive form of authoritarian influence, most societies are dangerously underequipped. New strategies are urgently needed.
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
Democracies are under stress, but they are not about to buckle. The erosion of norms and other woes do not spell democratic collapse. With incredibly few exceptions, affluent democracies will endure, no matter the schemes of would-be autocrats.
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
Analysis that subtly defines away problems is not going to help democracies survive the threats they now face. The fear is warranted.
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
It is no easy feat to agree on how democratic backsliding should be measured. No surprise scholars are coming up with strikingly different results.
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
Democratic death has been exaggerated. But fear that a democracy is going to break down may, ironically, be one of the things that protects it.
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
Democracies are increasingly under attack by the leaders they elect. We may not know the damage until it is too late.
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
We welcome the common ground. The challenge ahead is to protect democracies genuinely in peril, while not losing valuable time and resources chasing authoritarian ghosts.
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
Beijing is bent on deploying mass surveillance to eliminate threats to its rule. It is terrifying—and the latest example of its determination to remold society.
July 2022, Volume 33, Issue 3
Volodymyr Zelensky is far more than a brave wartime leader. He began changing the tenor and direction of Ukrainian politics long before the people made him their president.
July 2022, Volume 33, Issue 3
The more determined democracies are to avoid war, the greater the risk that autocracies will wage it.
July 2022, Volume 33, Issue 3
Why did Russia invade Ukraine? And why are Russian forces fighting so poorly? The internal logic of its personalist dictatorship is to blame.
July 2022, Volume 33, Issue 3
More than window dressing, public-opinion surveys and elections provide a crucial insight into the Russian people’s relationship with their regime.
July 2022, Volume 33, Issue 3
The first two months of the war alone turned the Russian clock back decades, undoing thirty years of post-Soviet economic gains and reducing the country to an international pariah state.
July 2022, Volume 33, Issue 3
The case of Hungary shows how autocrats can rig elections legally, using legislative majorities to change the law and neutralize the opposition at every turn, no matter what strategy they adopt.
