THE STRUGGLE AGAINST SULTANISM Akbar Ganji P olitical activism and the critique of the ruling system are important: Intellectuals have a moral obligation to reduce the pain and suffering of human beings ([Karl] Popper, [Richard] Rorty). Dictatorships and ty- rannical systems impose pain and suffering on their people in various ways. The endeavor to…
PREEMPTING DEMOCRACY: THE CASE OF BELARUS Vitali Silitski In 2001, ten years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the prospects for democracy in its successor states (outside the Baltic) seemed in- creasingly bleak. Even countries that had begun their independence from the USSR in relatively promising fashion seemed to be sliding back toward…
TRANSITIONS FROM POSTCOMMUNISM Michael McFaul T he collapse of communism did not lead smoothly or quickly to the consolidation of liberal democracy in Europe and the former Soviet Union. 1 At the time of regime change, from 1989 into the first few years of the 1990s, popular democratic movements in the three Baltic states,…
THE ANTI-AMERICAN CENTURY? Ivan Krastev T he twentieth century was “the American century.” Championing de- mocracy and capitalism, the United States won the Cold War and emerged as the only global superpower—not only in military, but also in economic, technological, and even cultural terms. The widening cur- rency of the English language and the…
SCHOLARSHIP AND STATESMANSHIP Fernando Henrique Cardoso I first came to know Professor Seymour Martin Lipset in the mid-1960s, when I contributed a chapter to a book that he and the Paraguayan sociologist Aldo Solari were preparing on the topic of elites in Latin America. 1 I was by then a full-time researcher at the…
THE RISE OF “MUSLIM DEMOCRACY” Vali Nasr A specter is haunting the Muslim world. This particular specter is not the malign and much-discussed spirit of fundamentalist extremism, nor yet the phantom hope known as liberal Islam. Instead, the specter that I have in mind is a third force, a hopeful if still somewhat ambiguous…
LESSONS FROM IRAQ Larry Diamond A mong the growing number of recent cases where international actors have become engaged in trying to rebuild a shattered state and con- struct democracy after conflict, Iraq is somewhat unique. The state collapsed not as a result of a civil war or internal conflict, but as a result…
LATIN AMERICAN PRESIDENCIES INTERRUPTED Arturo Valenzuela A lmost 25 years have passed since Latin America began what has turned out to be the fullest and most enduring experience it has ever had with constitutional democracy. While dictatorships were the norm in the 1960s and 1970s—only Colombia, Costa Rica, and Venezuela avoided authoritarian rule during…
FORCE, MONEY, AND PLURALISM Stephen Sestanovich N othing seems harder to understand about a great revolution than when it is over. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union almost 13 years ago, students of the new regime have been on the lookout for signs that the energy that brought down the communist system was…
IRAQ: SETBACKS, ADVANCES, PROSPECTS Adeed Dawisha W hatever their views regarding the wisdom of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, friends of democracy cannot help but wish that the new regime which emerges in that country will be a reasonably democratic one. This is a matter of the gravest concern to the long-suffering Iraqi people,…
REVIVING MIDDLE EASTERN LIBERALISM Saad Eddin Ibrahim A t times I thought this moment would never come, that I would never see the United States again. But it has come, and I am free, happy, and gratified. This, of course, is most immediately the case because the Court of Cassation—the highest body of civilian…
1 Democracy, Dictatorship, and Infant Mortality Revisited Patricio Navia and Thomas D. Zweifel Journal of Democracy, July 2003, Volume 14, Number 3 The following is the batch file used by the authors to run their statistics using Limdep software. (Information on Limdep can be found at www.limdep.com .) The description of the variables appears…
July 2012, Volume .23, Number 3 $12.0.0 Putinism Under Siege Lilia Shevtsova H Ivan Krastev & SHtephen Holfes NHicu bopescuDenis Volkov VHladifir Milov SHharon Wolchik Reading African Elections Kennedy Ochieng’ OpaHlo E. Gyifah-BoHadi & H. Kwasi brefpHeh Mvefba Dizolele & bHascal Kafbale CHatherine Kelly Hungary’s Illiberal Turn Jacques Rupnik EHrin Jenne & Cas MudHde…
July 2012, Volume .23, Number 3 $12.0.0 Putinism Under Siege Lilia Shevtsova H Ivan Krastev & SHtephen Holfes NHicu bopescuDenis Volkov VHladifir Milov SHharon Wolchik Reading African Elections Kennedy Ochieng’ OpaHlo E. Gyifah-BoHadi & H. Kwasi brefpHeh Mvefba Dizolele & bHascal Kafbale CHatherine Kelly Hungary’s Illiberal Turn Jacques Rupnik EHrin Jenne & Cas MudHde…
Kennedy Ochieng ’ Opalo , “African Elections: Two Divergent Trends ” 1 Appendix Figure I: Comparing Electoral Outcomes in Africa and Term Limit Violations Vote Share and Term Limits ( Observers vs . Violators) Quality of Legislative Elections and Term Limits Kennedy Ochieng ’ Opalo , “African Elections: Two Divergent Trends ” 2 Figure…
July 2012, Volume .23, Number 3 $12.0.0 Putinism Under Siege Lilia Shevtsova H Ivan Krastev & SHtephen Holfes NHicu bopescuDenis Volkov VHladifir Milov SHharon Wolchik Reading African Elections Kennedy Ochieng’ OpaHlo E. Gyifah-BoHadi & H. Kwasi brefpHeh Mvefba Dizolele & bHascal Kafbale CHatherine Kelly Hungary’s Illiberal Turn Jacques Rupnik EHrin Jenne & Cas MudHde…
