January 2014, Volume 25, Issue 1
The Legacies of 1989: The Moving Ruins
Communism is gone, but while it was alive and in power it bred profound moral pathologies that still haunt the region.
1918 Results
January 2014, Volume 25, Issue 1
Communism is gone, but while it was alive and in power it bred profound moral pathologies that still haunt the region.
January 2014, Volume 25, Issue 1
After a half-century of brutal communist rule and two decades of troubled postcommunist life, this small Balkan state surprised many by achieving a successful turnover of power by means of the ballot.
July 2013, Volume 24, Issue 3
The Hashemite monarchy still fails to understand the challenges that threaten Jordan’s political order. The old playbook of limited, manipulated reform is no longer enough, but key players fail to realize it.
April 2013, Volume 24, Issue 2
A particular pattern of institutional change—“serial replacement”—is dominant in Latin America and other developing countries with weak institutional contexts. This pattern is characterized by institutional change that is both frequent and radical.
April 2013, Volume 24, Issue 2
Should Brussels intervene to protect democracy within EU member states? Does Europe have the tools it would need to do so effectively? Recent developments in Hungary and Romania show the importance of addressing these questions sooner rather than later.
April 2013, Volume 24, Issue 2
Data from the latest wave of the Asian Barometer Survey show commonalities and variations in the sources of regime support in Southeast Asian countries. Most regimes—democracies and nondemocracies alike—draw political legitimacy from perceptions of effective and upright governance.
October 2012, Volume 23, Issue 4
The present crisis of the Euro is a near perfect example of how causal complexity, unanticipated consequences, and decisional uncertainty can have a significant and cumulative impact on regional integration. In theory, this should be the crisis that will drive the EU from economic to political integration. In practice, the outcome—at least, so far—has been…
July 2012, Volume 23, Issue 3
Although they have quieted down as quickly as they flared up, the clamorous protests that followed the dishonest Russian legislative elections in December 2011 have essentially destroyed Putin’s regime, the infamous “managed democracy.”
July 2012, Volume 23, Issue 3
Can outside actors help Hungarians to loosen Fidesz’s centralized grip on all of their country’s governing institutions?
July 2012, Volume 23, Issue 3
Until recently, political scientists argued that democracy had poor chances of survival in a multiparty presidential regime. Latin America’s recent experience tells a different story.
April 2012, Volume 23, Issue 2
Vietnam and its smaller neighbors Laos and Cambodia remain bastions of illiberalism and one-party rule despite rapid economic growth and falling poverty. What will it take to reform their elitist political cultures and curtail the use of public office for private ends?
April 2012, Volume 23, Issue 2
In 2011, Thais reelected a party backed by deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Why is his brand of populism so irrepressible, and what can be done to reconcile the voting power of Thailand’s rural lower classes with the establishment dug in around the Thai monarchy?
January 2012, Volume 23, Issue 1
Read the full essay here. Turkish state policy toward the Kurds, the Republic of Turkey’s largest ethnic minority, has evolved from denial and mandatory assimilation to cultural recognition to acknowledgment of the Kurds’ contested status as a political problem demanding political solutions. The election of 36 Kurdish-nationalist lawmakers, most of whom now sit in parliament…
January 2012, Volume 23, Issue 1
Contrary to popular wisdom, emerging democracies might be better off with a majoritarian electoral system rather than one based on proportional representation.
October 2011, Volume 22, Issue 4
Despite the presidential victory of Ollanta Humala, Peru’s 2011 elections had some continuities with the 2006 contest. The electorate is dividing along regional and socioeconomic rather than partisan lines.
October 2011, Volume 22, Issue 4
In a runoff between candidates with dubious democratic credentials, former antisystem outsider Ollanta Humala defeated Keiko Fujimori by attracting votes from the middle class.
January 2011, Volume 22, Issue 1
African politics is often characterized as a realm of “informality,” but formal rules and institutions actually loom large, especially with regard to overweening executive power and the reforms that may help to rein it in.
July 2010, Volume 21, Issue 3
Although many Iraqi parties continue to be organized along religious or ethnic lines, both the tone and the results of the 2010 parliamentary election campaign show that most Iraqi voters prefer a broader national agenda over narrow sectarian appeals.
April 2010, Volume 21, Issue 2
In emerging democracies and postconflict countries, improved policing is almost always urgently required. Yet international-assistance efforts in this area pay almost no attention to the crucial need to ensure that the new-model police are not only effective, but democracy-friendly.
April 2010, Volume 21, Issue 2
Amid a climate of rising crime and insecurity as well as economic uncertainty produced by the global downturn, can the study of public opinion and attitudes reveal which Central American countries are most at risk of democratic reversals?