July 2014, Volume 25, Issue 3
V-Dem: A New Way to Measure Democracy
In order to mark democracy’s progress and to inform policy, we need to be able to measure democracy in sufficient detail. The V-Dem Project aims to deliver exactly such a tool.
555 Results
July 2014, Volume 25, Issue 3
In order to mark democracy’s progress and to inform policy, we need to be able to measure democracy in sufficient detail. The V-Dem Project aims to deliver exactly such a tool.
April 2025, Volume 36, Issue 2
Everything we know about getting and keeping democracy suggests we should be, at best, cautious about the prospects for Syria’s democratic future. But, as this collection of essays suggests, there are reasons for hope.
October 2019, Volume 30, Issue 4
The gilets jaunes movement erupted suddenly but has now apparently subsided without leaving a significant impact on electoral politics. Yet the tensions that gave rise to the working-class protests remain strong and are reshaping the political landscape of a divided France.
Many feared Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s election would spell the end of Philippine democracy. But the dictator’s son has surprised nearly everyone, playing the role of a reformer while moving fast to sideline his populist rivals.
A few years ago Anura Kumara Dissanayake led a struggling political party with bleak prospects. Now he is Sri Lanka’s newly elected president. The hardest work may still lie ahead.
Strongman nostalgia, conspiracy theories, and lies. It’s a powerful blend that keeps populists in power. In the Philippines, political clans have weaponized these messages against each other.
July 2025, Volume 36, Issue 3
Syria is a rare case. A state being governed by a new elite that is committed to Islamic thought but open to a wide range of intellectual influences. While it is early, we may see the rise of a novel brand of Islamic presidentialism in the works.
The system that Russia’s autocrat built wasn’t designed to survive the pressures it is now facing.
April 2004, Volume 15, Issue 2
Excerpts from a United Nations report on the feasibility of early elections and possible alternatives in Iraq; an inaugural address by Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili delivered in Tbilisi on January 25; a letter signed by more than 100 reformist Iranian parliamentarians criticizing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for approving the Guardian Council disqualification of more…
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
A tribute in remembrance of Alfred C. Stepan (1936–2017).
July 2013, Volume 24, Issue 3
When this small island kingdom in the Gulf joined the wider Arab world’s political upheavals in March 2011, it was a reaction to regional events, but also a reflection of internal problems that had been festering for a decade.
October 2010, Volume 21, Issue 4
Yemen today finds itself gripped by a set of crises that threatens its very unity as a country. Only a turn toward democratic dialogue offers a way out.
January 2024, Volume 35, Issue 1
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.
April 2025, Volume 36, Issue 2
Syrians rejoiced when Bashar al-Assad’s regime fell. After decades of dictatorship and civil war, Syrians must now rebuild their country while seeking justice for the victims of authoritarian rule.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
To safeguard their ill-gotten gains, kleptocrats rely on a web of transnational relationships and the complicity of Western fixers.
April 2014, Volume 25, Issue 2
Reports on elections in Bangladesh, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Libya, Madagascar, Mali, and Thailand.
Appendix – How Much Democratic Backsliding
April 2013, Volume 24, Issue 2
Evidence of the evil perpetrated in North Korea’s prison camps continues to emerge, as most vividly highlighted by Blaine Harden’s Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West.
April 2011, Volume 22, Issue 2
A review of Witness to Transformation: Refugee Insights into North Korea by Marcus Noland and Stephan Haggard.