July 2025, Volume 36, Issue 3
Capitalism is often blamed for democracy’s ills. But much of the blame is misplaced. It is not business capture of the state but rather state capture of business that poses the greatest danger to democracy.
For all the warning signs, India held the line after a decade of backsliding.
Ukrainians’ first priority is defending their country from Russia’s invasion. They would rather hold fair, free, and inclusive elections than vote for the sake of voting.
October 2023, Volume 34, Issue 4
Despite worry of an authoritarian resurgence, the vast majority of “third wave” democracies are enduring. Democracy, buoyed by economic growth and urbanization, is outperforming most people’s expectations or fears.
July 2023, Volume 34, Issue 3
Some autocracies are dominated by their militaries, while others hold the generals in check. The key is this: If an autocratic regime did not create its military, it will struggle to control it.
The last Soviet leader brought down his regime and ended the Cold War. The free world owes him a debt of gratitude.
April 2022, Volume 33, Issue 2
Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has done something for the world’s democrats they could seemingly not do for themselves—given them renewed unity, purpose, and resolve.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has given the world’s democrats a renewed sense of unity and purpose. Putin’s reckless gamble may unexpectedly strengthen democracy in Europe and beyond.
October 2020, Volume 31, Issue 4
In a country where opposition forces were long marginalized and dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka faced little serious threat to his rule, Belarus’s 2020 antirevolutionary protest movement has changed the game.
January 2020, Volume 31, Issue 1
In recent years competitive authoritarianism has emerged in some countries with relatively strong democratic traditions and institutions.
July 2019, Volume 30, Issue 3
Within Ukraine, Russia’s 2014 invasion has generated unprecedented pressures to impose restrictions on speech. While international norms allow some censorship during wartime, some of Ukraine’s new media and cultural policies raise risks not only for its democracy, but for its security as well.
January 2016, Volume 27, Issue 1
While “autocracy promotion” presents a real danger, its influence so far has been limited. Because authoritarian regimes are concerned first with furthering their own interests, their interventions often have contradictory effects, sometimes even inadvertently fostering greater pluralism.
January 2015, Volume 26, Issue 1
In contrast to the conventional wisdom that democracy is in retreat worldwide, the evidence tells a different story: The state of global democracy has been stable over the last decade and is actually better than it was in the 1990s.
October 2014, Volume 25, Issue 4
Linkage and leverage largely reflect long-term structural factors, and only in certain situations can they be affected by policy choices.
July 2014, Volume 25, Issue 3
Despite the spirit of participation that characterized the Maidan, organized civil society groups were not a key factor.
July 2013, Volume 24, Issue 3
Authoritarian regimes that have their origins in revolutionary struggle have a much higher survival rate than other brands of authoritarianism. What accounts for their durability?
October 2011, Volume 22, Issue 4
The Arab events of 2011 may have some similarities to the wave of popular upheavals against authoritarianism that swept the Soviet bloc starting in 1989, but the differences are much more fundamental.
January 2010, Volume 21, Issue 1
In some countries, democratic competition is undermined less by electoral fraud or repression than by a skewed playing field—unequal access to state institutions, resources, and the media.
January 2009, Volume 20, Issue 1
The color revolutions illustrate both the prevalence of diffusion and the potential limits of its impact on political change.
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.
July 2005, Volume 16, Issue 3
The role of international factors varied greatly across the post-Cold War transitions to democracy, but the intensity and results of external democratizing pressure depended on two variables: linkage to the West and Western leverage.
April 2005, Volume 16, Issue 2
Desperate to secure victory for its own candidate in the 2004 presidential election, the incumbent regime undertook an unprecedented campaign of blatant election fraud. But it had underestimated the citizenry that it was trying to deceive.
October 2002, Volume 13, Issue 4
During the 1990s, politics in the small post-Soviet state of Moldova was more competitive than anyone would have expected. Yet there was less to this surprising pluralism than met the eye.
April 2002, Volume 13, Issue 2
In recent years, new types of nondemocratic government have come to the fore, notably competitive authoritarianism. Such regimes, though not democratic, feature arenas of contestation in which opposition forces can challenge, and even oust, authoritarian incumbents.
For almost a decade, Freedom House’s annual survey has highlighted a decline in democracy in most regions of the globe. Some analysts say this shows that the world has entered a "democratic recession." Others dispute that interpretation, emphasizing democracy’s success in maintaining the huge gains it made during the last quarter of the twentieth century.
The uprisings that swept the Arab world beginning in 2010 toppled four entrenched rulers and seemed to create a political opening in a region long impervious to democratization.
With such influential contributors as Francis Fukuyama, Robert Putnam, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and Anwar Ibrahim, this is an indispensable resource for students of democracy and instructors at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
If democracy means anything, it means robust debates. Debates on Democratization is a collection of essays that explores the questions and controversies that surround contemporary democratization.
