3255 Results
July 2022, Volume 33, Issue 3
The Kremlin wields food as a weapon and a shield against Western interference. But Putin’s push for food autarky could backfire, driving up prices and turning Russians against the regime.
July 2006, Volume 17, Issue 3
January’s remarkably free and fair parliamentary elections broke the PLO’s longstanding monopoly over Palestinian politics. Given Fatah’s disarray and the difficulties facing Hamas, there is now a window of opportunity for a third and avowedly liberal-democratic option to emerge.
July 2025, Volume 36, Issue 3
Iran’s theocracy has waged a brutal campaign against its own citizens for years. Now that the Woman, Life, Freedom movement has stripped the regime of any legitimacy, the mullahs have had no response but to sharpen their instruments of repression.
October 2019, Volume 30, Issue 4
Amid mass protests, the personalist autocracy of longtime Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir fell to an April 2019 coup. With the country now being governed by a council composed of both opposition leaders and powerful security-service coupmakers, prospects for democratization remain uncertain.
January 2004, Volume 15, Issue 1
Excerpts from: a November 2003 interview with Iranian human rights activist Shirin Ebadi, winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize; a September 2003 speech by Hossein Khomeni, grandson of the founder and Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran; a September 2003 statement issued by Václav Havel, Arpád Göncz, and Lech Wałęsa, former presidents…
January 2005, Volume 16, Issue 1
Excerpts from: a declaration issued by the International Committee for Democracy in Cuba; an open letter issued by leading democrats decrying Russian president Vladimir Putin’s series of “reforms”; a statement issued by forty leading civil society groups from the Middle East and North Africa; an open letter issued in response to the initiation of criminal…
October 2007, Volume 18, Issue 4
Observers who focus too much on elections have failed to grasp the maturation of Iranian civil society, even as hard-liners have come to dominate the government.
July 2019, Volume 30, Issue 3
In both Eastern and Western Europe, social-democratic parties have shifted to the center on economic policy, not only sapping the electoral strength of these parties, but also opening up political space for the populist right.
January 2012, Volume 23, Issue 1
Read the full essay here. In the West, Turkey is considered a model for a secular democracy in the Muslim world, yet the country finds itself mired in a crisis of civil rights and liberties under a third term of the pro-Islamic AKP government. Ironically, while the government maintains a discourse on political reform—including constitutional…
Online Exclusive by Daniel Fried | It is tempting to believe the horrors of the past will not haunt our future. Vladimir Putin is proving that we hold such beliefs at our peril.
Winter 1990, Volume 1, Issue 1
Our goal at present is the thorough modernization of China. We all have a compelling sense of the need for this. There is a widespread feeling of dissatisfaction with the status quo among people in all walks of life.
Many derided it as naïve idealism, but the vision undergirding the Freedom Agenda offers lessons for the biggest global tests of our time. | Peter Feaver and William Inboden
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.
October 2017, Volume 28, Issue 4
Is pressing a troubled, intensely fragile “postconflict” country to hold elections a good idea? Somalia did so in late 2016 and early 2017, and the process was not pretty. But was it better than the alternative?
October 2011, Volume 22, Issue 4
When it comes to backing democracy and human rights in international forums, the behavior of the world’s six most influential rising democracies ranges from sympathetic support to borderline hostility.
October 2024, Volume 35, Issue 4
When an epidemic of Koran burnings swept Denmark and Sweden, the Danish government criminalized the practice. It is a misguided response that misses the opportunity to protect both minorities and the right to free speech.
Turkish democracy is at a turning point: Will democratic forces be able to triumph at the ballot box in the next general election, or will the country devolve into full-blown authoritarianism?
October 2018, Volume 29, Issue 4
AMLO’s sweeping victory in Mexico’s 2018 elections could point to a long-term dealignment of the country’s party system, but it is more likely that a less radical process of partisan recomposition will take place.
July 2020, Volume 31, Issue 3
Remarks on China from Deputy U.S. National Security Advisor Matt Pottinger; joint statement by David Kaye, Harlem Désir, and Edison Lanza on protecting the free flow of information during the covid-19 pandemic; open letter by Indian academic and Dalit-rights activist Anand Teltumbde; reflections from Joshua Wong on the future of Hong Kong’s prodemocracy movement
January 2010, Volume 21, Issue 1
Excerpts from: Ayman Nour’s video message to the National Endowment for Democracy’s conference, “Middle Eastern Democrats and Their Vision of the Future”; Wang Lixiong’s speech accepting the Light of Truth Award; Ladan Boroumand’s speech accepting the Lech Wałęsa Prize; the “EU Agenda for Action”—the annex to the “Conclusions on Democracy Support in the EU’s External Relations”
