India held the line this year after a decade of backsliding, but the world’s biggest democracy and its brand of Hindu nationalism were top of mind for our readers in 2024. Meanwhile, this “year of elections” raised questions about liberalism, civic virtue, and democratic resilience across the world. The Journal of Democracy covered all of these ideas — plus the biggest stories of the year. Here are our 10 most-read essays of 2024.
1. Hindu Nationalism and the New Jim Crow
While the histories of white supremacy and Hindu supremacy are different, their political objectives are much the same. The BJP is forging a regime of exclusion and oppression as brutal as the Jim Crow South. Only India’s voters can reverse its advance.
By Ashutosh Varshney and Connor Staggs
2. Misunderstanding Democratic Backsliding
If democracies did a better job “delivering” for their citizens, so the thinking goes, people would not be so ready to embrace antidemocratic alternatives. Not so. This conventional wisdom about democratic backsliding is seldom true and often not accurate at all.
By Thomas Carothers and Brendan Hartnett
3. America’s Crisis of Civic Virtue
The problem for democracy today is not capitalism; it is a decline in public honesty and civility. But there is an opportunity to revive our sense of national community, if we seize it.
By Arthur C. Brooks
4. The Liberalism of Refuge
Liberal societies are those which offer refuge from the very people they empower — through individual choice, mobility, and the possibility of exit. This is the form of liberty that most clearly elevates the liberal project.
By Bryan Garsten
5. Who Decides What Is Democratic?
The “crisis” of democracy is a crisis of representation. New parties, some of which are populist in troublingly illiberal ways, are arising from this moment. The danger that they pose is not that they are antidemocratic, but that they are antiliberal.
By Adam Przeworski
6. The Global Resistance to LGBTIQ Rights
Autocrats have found a new way to turn citizens against liberal democracy: convincing them that LGBTIQ rights, granted and protected in much of the West, pose a threat to their nation and its values.
By Phillip Ayoub and Kristina Stoeckl
7. Does Democracy Have a Future in Pakistan?
The schism between Pakistan’s military establishment and former prime minister Imran Khan marks a new era of instability. Is the country experiencing the rise of an autocratic deep state or the fall of authoritarian populism?
By Ayesha Jalal
8. The Autocrat-in-Training: The Sisi Regime at 10
Egypt’s general-turned-president has spent lavishly, cemented the military’s political and economic control, and, afraid of suffering Mubarak’s fate, become increasingly repressive. But with crushing inflation and everyday people suffering, is Sisi losing his grip?
By Hesham Sallam
9. When Democracy Is on the Ballot
Democracy is on dangerous ground when its fundamental rules become the main point of political contention. This is where we are today. The truth is that the institutions, not just the players, need to change.
By Michael Ignatieff
10. China’s Age of Counterreform
The People’s Republic of China has entered a new age, abandoning the ideological openness of the reform era and the socialist legacy of the revolutionary period. Under Xi Jinping, regime stability trumps all — and the PRC is weaker and less stable as a result.
By Carl Minzner
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