April 2025, Volume 36, Issue 2
Democracy across the world is being undermined by the very forces that once made it possible: the liberal economic order and political competition. The global concentration of wealth has made democratic governance less effective and stripped the people of their power.
January 2025, Volume 36, Issue 1
With illiberal forces ascendant across the globe, protecting individual liberties and the democratic process is crucial. But when institutions empower minority groups over the majority, can democracy survive?
January 2025, Volume 36, Issue 1
Citizens across the globe still value democracy, but they have become dissatisfied with the way it is working. A new era of representation is in order — one featuring more diverse leaders, responsive politicians, and empowered publics.
October 2024, Volume 35, Issue 4
Political violence is rising in wealthy democracies. Polarized societies and bitter party politics are putting candidates and election officials in serious peril. Political leaders, more than anyone, have the power to stoke or stamp out this dangerous cycle of violence.
October 2024, Volume 35, Issue 4
Immigration threatens to erode liberalism, as far-right parties and migrant communities with illiberal views gain power. Mass publics have shouldered the blame. But should political elites be held responsible?
October 2024, Volume 35, Issue 4
Some liberals attribute the origins of our polarized political era to “identity politics.” But multiculturalism need not provoke majoritarian anxieties — not if national identities can open ways for all citizens to be recognized and heard.
July 2024, Volume 35, Issue 3
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.
July 2024, Volume 35, Issue 3
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.
July 2024, Volume 35, Issue 3
A review of The Death of Truth, by Steven Brill, and Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality, by Renée DiResta.
April 2024, Volume 35, Issue 2
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.
April 2023, Volume 34, Issue 2
The global democratic decline of the last two decades is rarely discussed in the same breath with the 2003 decision by the United States and Britain to invade Iraq. But the roots of our present disorder can be traced to that disastrous and foolhardy war of choice.
January 2023, Volume 34, Issue 1
The government of Giorgia Meloni, the country’s first female prime minister, is popular, scary, and competent. Her far-right party also enjoys greater democratic legitimacy than any other Italian party in a long time.
January 2023, Volume 34, Issue 1
The rising, far-right Sweden Democrats keep doing better in Swedish elections. They are now the country’s second-largest party, and their influence on Swedish political life has never been greater.
October 2021, Volume 32, Issue 4
Just as public frustration with democracy is mounting across the West, social turmoil and new technologies are splintering the very political authority governments need to act.
April 2021, Volume 32, Issue 2
The covid-19 pandemic nearly upended the U.S. election, but after a rocky primary season changes were made to save it. Alarmingly, however, a large portion of voters have rejected the result. The challenge of overcoming lies about a “rigged” election is great.
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
Political polarization is not always bad for democracy. What is more, a tendency of major parties to converge into some kind of “grand coalition of the center” poses serious risks for a democratic system.
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
The retirement of the country’s longest-serving prime minister leaves in place a “continuity administration,” and with it some troubling questions about whether liberal democracy’s “soft guardrails” are being eroded.
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
A review of The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? by Michael J. Sandel.
October 2020, Volume 31, Issue 4
Universities, publishers, and other knowledge-sector institutions face increasingly sophisticated authoritarian efforts to quash critics and subvert independent inquiry.
April 2018, Volume 29, Issue 2
Across the West, economic, demographic, and cultural shifts have spurred the rise of populists who embrace majoritarianism and popular sovereignty while showing little commitment to constitutionalism and individual liberty.
April 2018, Volume 29, Issue 2
The ability of liberal democracies around the world to translate popular views into public policy has been declining. Yet there is no easy way to overcome this trend without weakening the capacity of governments to solve some of the most pressing challenges of the coming decades.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
Takis Pappas argues that certain nativist parties of the populist right should be counted as liberal-democratic. This is a mistake; these parties do not truly merit that name.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
Contra Ben Margulies, one can clearly mark the boundaries that separate antidemocrats from democrats (nativists included), and nativists from populists.
October 2017, Volume 28, Issue 4
“Democratic deconsolidation” on the level of attitudes and beliefs is real, and behind it lies a disturbing rise in tolerance for antisocial behavior, especially among the young.
April 2017, Volume 28, Issue 2
Rising populism in the U.S. and beyond is calling into question the liberal-democratic bargain that has defined the postwar era. What led to Americans’ present revolt against elites, and what are its implications?
April 2017, Volume 28, Issue 2
Traditional intermediary institutions such as parties and the legacy media are not what they once were, and they are not coming back. What are the implications of new social media and digital-campaign techniques?
January 2017, Volume 28, Issue 1
Political scientists have long assumed that “democratic consolidation” is a one-way street, but survey evidence of declining support for democracy from across the established democracies suggests that deconsolidation is a genuine danger.
January 2017, Volume 28, Issue 1
The referendum campaign and its aftermath have exposed fault lines between the “two Britains” that have been long in the making and that pose stark questions about national values and identity.
January 2017, Volume 28, Issue 1
Just two years after voting to stay in the United Kingdom, Scotland voted to remain in the EU while Britain as a whole voted to leave. Is another independence referendum coming?
January 2017, Volume 28, Issue 1
The British decision to leave the EU raises difficult challenges for the still-delicate settlement upon which peace and stability in Northern Ireland depend.
January 2017, Volume 28, Issue 1
The British party system is being fundamentally reshaped by the consequences of the British decision to leave the EU, which also threatens to reduce Britain’s influence on the rest of the world.
January 2017, Volume 28, Issue 1
The use of force and intimidation against women trying to take part in politics is a growing problem in many places. Such violence assumes a number of different forms, but all aim to keep women as women out of public life.
January 2017, Volume 28, Issue 1
A review of The Anglo-American Tradition of Liberty: A View from Europe by João Carlos Espada.
October 2016, Volume 27, Issue 4
Europe’s democratic stability hinges on Germany, but a far-right challenger is on the rise. Can the country’s long-dominant centrist parties hold on?
October 2016, Volume 27, Issue 4
Once a protest party, the right-wing National Front has sought to recast itself for electoral success. How will Marine Le Pen fare in the 2017 presidential race?
October 2016, Volume 27, Issue 4
What some had thought would be the “end of history” has instead turned out to be the “new world disorder.” Democratic liberalism may have no new ideological rival, but older identities are powerfully reasserting themselves.
July 2016, Volume 27, Issue 3
Is democratic deconsolidation underway in the United States and Europe? In recent years, support for democracy, especially among millennials, has been dwindling in a number of established democracies.
July 2016, Volume 27, Issue 3
The evidence presented by Foa and Mounk is troubling, but it does not mean that democracy is now in long-term decline.
January 2010, Volume 21, Issue 1
The crisis of the 9/11 terrorist attacks has sparked a surge of increased civic engagement by young people in the United States, but there is also evidence of a growing divide along class lines.
January 2009, Volume 20, Issue 1
The case of Finland challenges conventional thinking on clean politics. Can it serve as a model for its more corrupt counterparts?
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
Democracy assistance has been a growing priority for the United States since the end of the Cold War. The record shows that its focus goes well beyond elections and other procedural dimensions of democracy.
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
In recent years, European aid in support of political development has been on the rise. What kind of programs have these funds been supporting, and where are they being spent?
January 2007, Volume 18, Issue 1
Those who argue that democracy requires preconditions often cite the example of gradual unfolding set by the established democracies. A glance at history, however, shows that even today's most placid democracies have "backstories" as turbulent as anything found in the developing world today.
October 2004, Volume 15, Issue 4
Freedom has always been integral to democracy. How to guard liberty is a question every democratic regime must answer.
January 2004, Volume 15, Issue 1
The advanced democracies are shifting from a reliance on representation toward a mixed repertoire that includes greater reliance on “direct” and “advocacy” democracy, creating new problems that will require new solutions.
October 2003, Volume 14, Issue 4
Is the EU an international organization, an emerging federal state, something in between, or something altogether different? So far it has managed to survive and prosper depite all the disagreements about its true nature, but for how long can it continue to do so?
April 2002, Volume 13, Issue 2
Italy has long mixed great local and regional diversity with a unitary approach to governance. In October 2001, however, Italian voters approved a series of changes to their country’s Constitution that could mark a decisive turn toward federalism.
October 2001, Volume 12, Issue 4
Israel began directly electing its prime minister in 1992, only to abandon this change less than ten years later. What came between was a series of hard lessons in the unintended consequences or reform.
April 2001, Volume 12, Issue 2
In postindustrial societies, class is less important as a source of party cleavage. With the European left embracing a market-friendly “third way,” political divisions in Europe are increasingly resembling those in the United States.
April 2001, Volume 12, Issue 2
The Editors’ introduction to “Revisiting Florida 2000.”
April 2001, Volume 12, Issue 2
Read the full essay here.
April 2001, Volume 12, Issue 2
Read the full essay here.
April 2001, Volume 12, Issue 2
Read the full essay here.
April 2001, Volume 12, Issue 2
Read the full essay here.
April 2001, Volume 12, Issue 2
Read the full essay here.
January 2001, Volume 12, Issue 1
Citizens of postcommunist countries not only want to be free to say what they think and to vote their conscience; they also want a government that obeys the rules it lays down and is not steeped in corruption.
July 2000, Volume 11, Issue 3
In recent years several Westminster-style parliamentary democracies have considered cutting their ties with the British monarchy and becoming republics. The difficulties involved in trying to make such a shift were on full display in Australia.
April 2000, Volume 11, Issue 2
A quarter-century after the classic study The Crisis of Democracy was published, three distinguished political scientists find that, though the “crisis” may have disappeared, public confidence is on the decline in almost all the world’s advanced democracies.
April 2000, Volume 11, Issue 2
With Austria’s and Switzerland’s leading political parties having “rigged the political marketplace” by forming Grand Coalitions, voters have turned to the radical right as the only available alternative.
January 2000, Volume 11, Issue 1
Read the full essay here.
October 1998, Volume 9, Issue 4
Read the full essay here.
January 1996, Volume 7, Issue 1
A review of Why Parties? The Origin and Transformation of Party Politics in America, by John H. Aldrich.
July 1995, Volume 6, Issue 3
The Editors’ introduction to “The Western Allies 50 Years Later.”
July 1995, Volume 6, Issue 3
Read the full essay here.
July 1995, Volume 6, Issue 3
Read the full essay here.
July 1995, Volume 6, Issue 3
Read the full essay here.
January 1995, Volume 6, Issue 1
Something happened in America starting in the mid-to-late twentieth century to diminish civic engagement and social connectedness. What could that “something” be? Why were fewer and fewer Americans going the polls, the pews, and town halls?
January 1995, Volume 6, Issue 1
A review of Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, by Robert D. Putnam, with Robert Leonardi and Raffaella Y. Nanetti.
July 1994, Volume 5, Issue 3
Read the full essay here.
July 1994, Volume 5, Issue 3
Read the full essay here.
January 1994, Volume 5, Issue 1
Read the full essay here.
January 1994, Volume 5, Issue 1
Read the full essay here.
January 1994, Volume 5, Issue 1
Read the full essay here.
October 1993, Volume 4, Issue 4
Read the full essay here.
January 1993, Volume 4, Issue 1
Read the full essay here.
Fall 1991, Volume 2, Issue 4
Read the full essay here.
Fall 1991, Volume 2, Issue 4
A review of Exporting Democracy: Fulfilling America’s Destiny, by Joshua Muravchik and Exporting Democracy: The United States and Latin America, edited by Abraham F. Lowenthal.
France is burning through prime ministers and Macron’s political gambles are going bust. The French president needs to change his tactics before it’s too late.
The country’s mass protests were its last democratic guardrail. But Israel’s wartime goals have become a higher priority than keeping Netanyahu in check.
There is nothing inherently menacing or antidemocratic about conspiracy theories. They can even be a source of amusement. The trouble comes when political elites weaponize them to invite violence.
Samuel Huntington’s classic theory offered a new way of understanding democracy’s global trajectory. But amid rising populism and increasingly aggressive authoritarian leaders, has Huntington’s thesis outlived its usefulness?
Vladimir Putin has become a one-stop shop for authoritarians around the world, providing them whatever they need to advance their cause. Democracy’s defenders don’t get the same support — but it’s time for that to change.
On its 75th anniversary, the Atlantic Alliance should be celebrated for being more than the world’s greatest military compact. It’s an engine of democracy’s advance.
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.
