Toward Muslim Democracies
About two-thirds of the world's Muslims live under governments chosen through competitive elections. The remaining third lives mostly in the Arab world, a region that poses the hardest challenges for democratization.
April 2007
Volume 18, Issue 2
The Challenge of Closely Fought Elections
Closely fought elections are often fraught with conflict, splitting societies asunder. How can democracy survive such rough and close contests?
India's Unlikely Democracy
India’s Unlikely Democracy: Six Decades of Independence
By most theoretical accounts, Indian democracy should not even exist. Yet, despite serious challenges, it shows signs of enduring and even deepening.
India’s Unlikely Democracy: Economic Growth and Political Accommodation
So far, economic liberalization and globalization have not served to undermine India's democracy. Indeed, they may even be strengthening it.
India’s Unlikely Democracy: Civil Society Versus Corruption
Pervasive corruption hampers India's democracy, yet anticorruption movements may be helping to improve governmental accountability.
India’s Unlikely Democracy: The Rise of Judicial Sovereignty
India's courts have been playing a growing role in the country's political life. Yet even as judicial interventions have become more sweeping, the principles undergirding their legitimacy have become less clear.
A Wake-Up Call in Afghanistan
Much has been achieved both in the war against the Taliban and in the larger struggle to create a democratic Afghanistan, but dire problems remain.
Venezuela: Crowding Out the Opposition
President Hugo Cháez's regime demonstrates how a public desire for change plus state resources can be exploited to undermine democracy.
Another Russia?
Another Russia? Battling KGB, Inc.
The Putin regime is plunging Russia into a deepening crisis. It is time to end the fiction that today's Russia is a democracy.
Another Russia? After the Leviathan
There is a future for democracy in Russia, but it may have to wait until the people begin to feel the problems created by the current system.
Another Russia? Putin’s Invented Opposition
The Kremlin's ultimate need for democratic legitimacy, both at home and abroad, may be the key vulnerability of the Putin regime.
The 2006 Freedom House Survey: The Pushback Against Democracy
Although the overall state of democracy in the world differed little from that in 2005, a series of worrisome trends seem to be contributing to a stagnation of freedom.
Voting for Change in the DRC
The holding of competitive elections in this vast, strife-torn country must count as a significant achievement, even though voters signaled their disaffection with the entire array of political elites that had been ruling them.
Montenegro: A Miracle in the Balkans?
Tiny Montenegro gained its independence in a referendum in May 2006. What forces lay behind its completely peaceful break from its much larger neighbor, Serbia?
Are New Democracies War-Prone?
A review of Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War by Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder
Assisting Political Parties
A review of Confronting the Weakest Link: Aiding Political Parties in New Democracies by Thomas Carothers.
Election Watch
Reports on elections in Bahrain, Gabon, The Gambia, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mauritania, Saint Lucia, Senegal, Serbia, and Turkmenistan.
Documents on Democracy
Excerpts from: an open letter to Russian president Vladimir Putin in response to the decision to close the Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship; a message delivered by Democratic Republic of the Congo president Joseph Kabila acknowledging his victory in the 2006 elections.
Seymour Martin Lipset (1922–2006)
A tribute in remembrance of the life of Seymour Martin Lipset (1922–2006).