April 2015, Volume 26, Issue 2
Even if Vladimir Putin were to lose his grip on office, the “Russian system” might only wind up exchanging one form of personalized power for another in its endless search for self-perpetuation.
April 2015, Volume 26, Issue 2
Why do some hybrid regimes remain stable over time, while others become more authoritarian? Venezuela’s autocratic turn has been driven by the ruling party’s declining electoral fortunes and by a foreign policy that has shielded it from international scrutiny.
April 2015, Volume 26, Issue 2
Iran’s authoritarianism is more flexible and more durable than its detractors would hope, yet more fragile and endangered than its defenders claim.
April 2015, Volume 26, Issue 2
The Iranian regime has sought to recast conventional principles of human rights and political participation by forging alliances with like-minded regimes and by broadcasting its narrative to an international audience.
April 2015, Volume 26, Issue 2
Saudi Arabia’s vast oil wealth sustains the antidemocratic policies that a nervous royal regime uses to defend against the threats and problems that confront it.
April 2015, Volume 26, Issue 2
In a year marked by escalating terrorism, the use of more brutal repression by authoritarian regimes, and Russia’s annexation of a neighboring country’s territory, the state of freedom worsened significantly in nearly every part of the world.
January 2015, Volume 26, Issue 1
As China’s power grows, will it seek to remake the world in its authoritarian image? For now, China shows no such missionary impulse, but the ways in which it pursues its interests can still threaten the fate of democracy.
January 2015, Volume 26, Issue 1
The system of personalized power that has long ruled Russia now faces a new crisis, and it is trying to avert decay through the reassertion of empire.
October 2014, Volume 25, Issue 4
Advancing the democratic cause is threatening to autocrats, and they will fight back.
April 2014, Volume 25, Issue 2
Civil-liberties scores have notably declined over the past several years, while political-rights scores have slightly improved—perhaps because modern authoritarians have begun to adopt subtler means of repression. Overall, however, freedom experienced a global decline for the eighth straight year in 2013.
January 2014, Volume 25, Issue 1
“New media” may generate a lot of buzz, but authoritarian regimes are proving disturbingly adept both at counteracting them and at using more traditional media to help themselves hang on to power.
January 2014, Volume 25, Issue 1
A review of The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn’t What It Used to Be by Moisés Naím.
October 2013, Volume 24, Issue 4
Popular uprisings have occurred only in some Arab states and in even fewer have authoritarian rulers been overthrown. What factors allow us to predict whether an authoritarian regime will be vulnerable?
October 2013, Volume 24, Issue 4
The Assad regime has been adapting to the new challenges posed by mass uprisings through a process of “authoritarian learning,” and at least some of its methods are being applied elsewhere in the region. Watch an interview with the author.
July 2013, Volume 24, Issue 3
Authoritarian regimes that have their origins in revolutionary struggle have a much higher survival rate than other brands of authoritarianism. What accounts for their durability?
July 2013, Volume 24, Issue 3
The left-populist authoritarianism that is taking hold across a swath of Latin America bears many resemblances to the rightist populism that was once widespread in the region. There are signs, however, that the leftist variant will be an even bigger problem for liberal democracy. Listen to the podcast.
July 2013, Volume 24, Issue 3
President Rafael Correa, now entering his third term, has built a curious form of populist-authoritarian regime. He champions redistributionism and a kind of technocratic leftism while assaulting the traditional left along with such mainstays of a liberal society as the freedom of the press.
July 2013, Volume 24, Issue 3
Today’s Russian protest movement in many ways resembles past civil-rights and civil-resistance efforts in other parts of the world, from its commitment to nonviolence to its key demands—a vote that counts and equality under the law. Listen to the podcast.
July 2013, Volume 24, Issue 3
The Putin regime, having faced its first real challenge in the form of mass protests after the 2011 Duma elections, is responding with a series of laws intended to intimidate its civil society opposition, if not stamp it out altogether.
July 2013, Volume 24, Issue 3
The Arab world’s old autocracies survived by manipulating the sharp identity conflicts in their societies. The division and distrust that this style of rule generated is now making it especially difficult to carry out the kind of pact-making often crucial to successful democratic transitions.
July 2013, Volume 24, Issue 3
Not only did the Algerian regime survive the “Arab Spring,” it hardly deviated from its normal methods of authoritarian governance—patronage, pseudodemocratization, and effective use of the security apparatus.
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
Although declines in freedom outnumbered gains yet again in 2012, the year was not without some significant progress, most notably in the case of Libya.
April 2013, Volume 24, Issue 2
A key factor in determining the success or failure of revolutions is how the national armed forces react. What are the keys to making accurate predictions about what the soldiers will do when the fate of a regime hangs in the balance?
April 2013, Volume 24, Issue 2
A number of countries including Russia and post-Mubarak Egypt are taking aggressive steps to limit or stop foreign funds from flowing to domestic NGOs that promote human rights and democracy. What is driving this trend, how far will it go, and what can be done to counter it?
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.
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.
January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
The resilience of the Chinese authoritarian regime is approaching its limits. A breakthrough moment could be triggered by several kinds of events.
January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
Despite the considerable resilience demonstrated by the Chinese authoritarian regime, its power experiences continuous atrophy. With the weakening of the totalitarian control imposed on Chinese society, the current stability-maintenance system has been decreasing in its effectiveness.
January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
There are two sharply contrasting and controversial perspectives on China’s near- to medium-term future: top-level reform and bottom-up revolution.
January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
China is heading toward a tipping point, with two likely scenarios for how a political opening will come about. Most Chinese intellectuals think that only gradualism—“slow and steady,” step-by-step reform—can offer China a safe and feasible path toward liberal democracy. But they are wrong. Instead of “taking it slow,” China should shun gradualism and opt…
January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
Although the Chinese Communist Party has tried to institutionalize the political system in the reform era, such efforts have been hampered by the Maoist legacy. To cope with challenges from the society, the CCP mainly relies on a highly centralized and resource-intensive weiwen system, and shows little respect for institutional differentiation and formal procedures.
January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
Over the past decade, Chinese authorities have turned against many of the legal reforms they themselves had enacted in the late 20th century. Lawyers have come under increased pressure. Political campaigns warning against rule-of-law norms have rippled through the courts. And central authorities have massively increased funding for extralegal institutions aimed at curtailing and suppressing…
January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
The response of the Chinese state (and of Chinese society at large) to the problems of the country’s periphery—Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia, as well as hundreds of counties, prefectures, and townships in Sichuan, Qinghai, Yunnan, and other areas—is piling more tension and misery upon the populations there, but it is not undermining state power.
January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
In recent years, Chinese netizens have shown boundless creativity and ingenuity in expressing themselves despite government restrictions on online speech. Will new political discourse give birth to a new political identity? Are new forms of networked communication enhancing opportunities for social change and helping to move China toward a “threshold” for political transformation?
October 2012, Volume 23, Issue 4
A review of The Dictator’s Learning Curve: Inside the Global Battle for Democracy by William J. Dobson
July 2012, Volume 23, Issue 3
Regular elections have become a fixture of political life throughout sub-Saharan Africa, but there are now “two Africas” in this regard: one where elections bring the blessings of greater political openness and competition, and another where elections are, in effect, one more tool that authoritarians use to retain power.
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?
April 2012, Volume 23, Issue 2
The strong state in Malaysia and Singapore best explains why their authoritarian regimes have proved so stable and enduring. That is also the reason why democratization would go smoothly in both countries—yet, paradoxically, might never happen there at all.
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
Do democracy and good governance necessarily go hand-in-hand? In most Southeast Asian countries, a gap exists between the two. How should we understand good governance in an authoritarian context? And what does poor governance mean for the legitimacy of democracy?
January 2012, Volume 23, Issue 1
The legitimacy and appeal of democracy in East Asia will depend on how democratic countries in the region stack up against China.
January 2012, Volume 23, Issue 1
Is “authoritarian resilience” in China a passing phenomenon, or is it something more durable?
January 2012, Volume 23, Issue 1
If the PRC moves toward democracy, it is likely to be in some part due to the influence of Taiwan.
January 2012, Volume 23, Issue 1
Morocco was not immune to the 2011 upheavals in the Arab world, but the country’s monarchy deftly managed the crisis through cosmetic constitutional reform.
July 2011, Volume 22, Issue 3
Strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s suspiciously lopsided 2010 electoral victory—and subsequent crackdown on dissent—may seem like a repeat of the events of 2006, but much has changed in the interval, and his regime is much more precarious today.
April 2011, Volume 22, Issue 2
Why are the unfree regimes of the former Soviet world proving so durable? A lack of ideology and—perhaps surprisingly—a degree of openness are proving to be not so much problems for authoritarianism as bulwarks of it.
April 2011, Volume 22, Issue 2
A review of Witness to Transformation: Refugee Insights into North Korea by Marcus Noland and Stephan Haggard.
October 2010, Volume 21, Issue 4
A review of Victorious and Vulnerable: Why Democracy Won in the 20th Century and How It Is Still Imperiled by Azar Gat.
January 2010, Volume 21, Issue 1
The new electoral authoritarian regimes of the post–Cold War era have formally adopted the full panoply of liberal-democratic institutions. Rather than rejecting or repressing these institutions, they manipulate them.
October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
Jordan gets much good press for having one of the more open and liberal regimes in the Arab world, but that reputation masks a considerably grimmer reality.
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
The same policies that fostered decades of prosperity in Singapore have also led to longer-term economic ills that might have been averted in a freer society.
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Read the full essay here. Arguably a flawed democracy in the 1990s, Russia took a distinctly authoritarian turn under President Vladimir Putin from 2000 to 2008. The country now lives under a façade democracy that barely conceals the political and administrative dominance of a self-interested bureaucratic corporation. The regime manufactures consent by means of three…
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Read the full essay here. Twenty years ago, there was a more thoroughgoing political pluralism in Russia than there is today. In some respects, the forms of democracy-including party consolidation-have been enhanced, but they have been so manipulated as to deprive them of substance. Either “electoral authoritarianism” of “multiparty authoritarianism” (Juan Linz’s terms) may reasonably…
January 2009, Volume 20, Issue 1
Levels of regime strength and links to the West help to explain authoritarian breakdown, but the ruler’s popularity also matters.
January 2009, Volume 20, Issue 1
Western pressure can be decisive, but it is not always easy to forecast when and how it will be applied.
July 2008, Volume 19, Issue 3
Can regionalism help to redress the uneven spread and internal weaknesses of democracy in Southeast Asia? Unforeseen events in the region and positive political entrepreneurship may yet transform ASEAN into a force for democracy.
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
Just as Russia's leaders pretend that they are ruling over a democracy, they also pretend that they are ruling over an empire.
October 2005, Volume 16, Issue 4
Having drawn lessons from the downfall of some of his fellow autocrats, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka is preventing the emergence of an effective democratic movement in Belarus.
October 2004, Volume 15, Issue 4
Slobodan Milošević fell in the fall of 2000 after he tried to pervert national election results. He had tampered with elections before and survived. What made 2000 different, and what are the lessons to be learned from it?
October 2003, Volume 14, Issue 4
A review of The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad by Fareed Zakaria.
January 2003, Volume 14, Issue 1
The Editors’ introduction to “China’s Changing of the Guard.”
January 2003, Volume 14, Issue 1
Successful institutionalization will help the regime survive the pressures of advanced modernization and integration with the global economy.
January 2003, Volume 14, Issue 1
The Communist Party’s adaptation to China’s new social elites will lead to a democratic transition only, if at all, at the expense of regime continuity.
January 2003, Volume 14, Issue 1
The Chinese state is much weaker than most people realize, which bodes ill for the country’s democratic prospects.
January 2003, Volume 14, Issue 1
The Chinese state has become more efficient, constrained, and responsive—improvements that could lay a base for a successful transition.
January 2003, Volume 14, Issue 1
The outward appearance of a powerful and confident Communist party-state masks a deep crisis.
October 2002, Volume 13, Issue 4
Politics in the Arab Middle East is often a matter of powerholders first liberalizing — and then "deliberalizing" — public life in order to first maintain their rule. But this "survival strategy" is a dead end.
July 2002, Volume 13, Issue 3
The Editors’ introduction to “Middle East Studies After 9/11.”
July 2002, Volume 13, Issue 3
Middle Eastern autocracies rely ever more on repression of both their Islamist and secular critics, and therefore increasingly fear that any opening will be uncontrollable. Is there a way out?
July 2002, Volume 13, Issue 3
While many experts recommend postponing democratization pending the rise of a middle class, a directly political strategy may well be better.
January 2002, Volume 13, Issue 1
Must countries where authoritarian regimes have fallen therefore be “in transition” to democracy? Many democracy promoters seem to think so. Yet trends on the ground in country after country are raising doubts about whether it is true or useful to think of democracy’s prospects in this way.
October 2001, Volume 12, Issue 4
In the wake of the East Asian economic crisis of 1997-98, how has the appeal to “Asian Values” fared as a rhetorical prop for undemocratic rule?
January 2001, Volume 12, Issue 1
Morocco’s new king, Mohamed VI, has two alternatives: He can invent a new “ruling bargain,” prolonging his father’s authoritarian rule in a new guise, or he can spearhead serious political reforms.
January 2001, Volume 12, Issue 1
The stunning defeat of a draft constitution backed by President Robert Mugabe and the opposition’s unexpectedly strong showing in the June 2000 parliamentary elections may have marked the beginning of the end of ruling-party hegemony in Zimbabwe.
July 2000, Volume 11, Issue 3
Democracy is spreading everywhere except in the Arab world. Arab elections are an immense masquerade. Corrupt dictatorships seek to stifle freedom of thought and to control the flow of information.
July 2000, Volume 11, Issue 3
While despotic Arab regimes may seem stable, change is brewing beneath the surface. A new era is emerging in which the state will be forced to retreat before a vibrant civil society.
July 1999, Volume 10, Issue 3
Read the full essay here.
July 1999, Volume 10, Issue 3
Review of Sultanistic Regimes, by H.E. Chehabi and Juan J. Linz, ed.
January 1998, Volume 9, Issue 1
Read the full essay here.
January 1998, Volume 9, Issue 1
Read the full essay here.
January 1998, Volume 9, Issue 1
Read the full essay here.
January 1998, Volume 9, Issue 1
Read the full essay here.
January 1998, Volume 9, Issue 1
Read the full essay here.
January 1998, Volume 9, Issue 1
Read the full essay here.
October 1997, Volume 8, Issue 4
Read the full essay here.
July 1997, Volume 8, Issue 3
A review of The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions, by Stephan Haggard and Robert R. Kaufman.
January 1997, Volume 8, Issue 1
A review of The Open Sore of a Continent: A Personal Narrative of the Nigerian Crisis, by Wole Soyinka.
