April 2025, Volume 36, Issue 2
Why Syria’s Civil Society Is the Key
After the collapse of the Assad regime, Syria stands at a crossroads. Nothing is assured, but the country’s civil society is its best hope for charting a democratic future.
Subject: Civil liberties
October 2024, Volume 35, Issue 4
Freedom of Expression’s Crisis of Interpretation
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.
July 2023, Volume 34, Issue 3
Kuwait’s Democratic Promise
This Arab state is different. It is far more liberal than any other Gulf kingdom, and it may even have a path, with much trial and effort, to becoming the region’s first democratic constitutional monarchy.
April 2023, Volume 34, Issue 2
Is Iran on the Verge of Another Revolution?
There have been numerous waves of protest against the country’s corrupt theocracy. This time is different. It is a movement to reclaim life. Whatever happens, there is no going back.
April 2023, Volume 34, Issue 2
Iraq’s Struggle for Democracy
Iraq today is more of a democracy than most people think, but still less of a democracy than it could be. While its future is uncertain, one thing is not: It will be determined by Iraqis.
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
Latin America’s Abortion Rights Breakthrough
A recent wave of wins for abortion rights—the “green tide” in Argentina, Mexico, and Colombia—owes its success to framing the issue as a matter of human rights.
July 2022, Volume 33, Issue 3
Combating Beijing’s Sharp Power: How Australia’s Civil Society Led the Way
Influence operations by the People’s Republic of China and its “united front” organs were exposed years ago, but civil society and Chinese-Australians were first in understanding how to counter them.
April 2022, Volume 33, Issue 2
How Beijing Runs the Show in Hollywood
China’s ability to shape the global entertainment industry extends well beyond films, and it no longer rests solely on the allure of big markets. Beijing is exerting newfound leverage that is making giant U.S. media companies do its bidding.
January 2022, Volume 33, Issue 1
Hong Kong: How Beijing Perfected Repression
With the new National Security Law, the Chinese Communist Party has honed its more sophisticated tool for hollowing out the city, whose rights and freedoms Beijing had once promised to respect.
July 2021, Volume 32, Issue 3
The Future of Platform Power: Quarantining Misinformation
With or without middleware, the basic challenge of responding to bad actors online remains.
July 2021, Volume 32, Issue 3
The Future of Platform Power: Fixing the Business Model
To stop surveillance capitalism, take aim at the targeted advertising that fuels it.
July 2021, Volume 32, Issue 3
The Future of Platform Power: Reining in Big Tech
Comprehensive regulation can strengthen user rights in the face of tech firms’ exploitative practices.
July 2021, Volume 32, Issue 3
The Future of Platform Power: Solving for a Moving Target
Despite the challenges, middleware offers a legally and politically feasible answer to platforms’ influence over speech.
April 2021, Volume 32, Issue 2
Making the Internet Safe for Democracy
The outsized power of large internet platforms to amplify or silence certain voices poses a grave threat to democracy. Finding a reliable way to dilute that power offers the best possible solution.
April 2021, Volume 32, Issue 2
Why Freedom Defeats Terrorism
Far from being a vulnerability in the struggle against terrorism, democratic freedoms are key to empowering moderate voices and depriving terrorists of popular support.
October 2020, Volume 31, Issue 4
The Authoritarian Assault on Knowledge
Universities, publishers, and other knowledge-sector institutions face increasingly sophisticated authoritarian efforts to quash critics and subvert independent inquiry.
October 2020, Volume 31, Issue 4
Crackdown: Hong Kong Faces Tiananmen 2.0
Liberty flourished in Hong Kong, but the Chinese Communist Party has crushed it. Beijing wants “capitalism without freedom” in the city, but can there be one without the other?
January 2020, Volume 31, Issue 1
The Cutting Edge of Sharp Power
Democratic societies must address the spread of technology developed in authoritarian settings while continuing to uphold democratic norms.
January 2020, Volume 31, Issue 1
An Illiberal India?
The country’s hold on electoral democracy is firm, but its claim still to be a liberal democracy is increasingly dubious.
July 2019, Volume 30, Issue 3
Free Speech in a Time of War
Within Ukraine, Russia’s 2014 invasion has generated unprecedented pressures to impose restrictions on speech. While international norms allow some censorship during wartime, some of Ukraine’s new media and cultural policies raise risks not only for its democracy, but for its security as well.
April 2019, Volume 30, Issue 2
The Freedom House Survey for 2018: Democracy in Retreat
Key democratic norms remained under threat in 2018, but there were also unexpected breakthroughs in Armenia, Malaysia, and Ethiopia.
January 2019, Volume 30, Issue 1
The Road to Digital Unfreedom: The Threat of Postmodern Totalitarianism
There is a growing sense today that democrats worldwide are in a race against time to prevent cyberspace from becoming an arena for surveillance, control, and manipulation.
January 2019, Volume 30, Issue 1
The Road to Digital Unfreedom: Three Painful Truths About Social Media
Not so long ago, the internet was being lauded as a force for greater freedom and democracy. With the rise of intrusive and addictive social media, however, a discomfiting reality has set in.
January 2019, Volume 30, Issue 1
The Road to Digital Unfreedom: How Artificial Intelligence Is Reshaping Repression
Democracies must grapple not only with the proliferation of AI to authoritarian and illiberal regimes, but also with the temptation that AI poses for democratic governments themselves.
January 2019, Volume 30, Issue 1
India Under Modi: Threats to Pluralism
In the world’s largest democracy, liberalism is in retreat, as evidenced by a pattern of assaults on minorities, press freedom, and the independence of key cultural and intellectual institutions.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
Fighting Terrorism: The Democracy Advantage
Despite worries that terror groups can turn open societies’ very openness against them, the numbers reveal that liberal democracies enjoy significant advantages in resisting the threat of terrorism.
July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3
India’s Democracy at 70: The Troublesome Security State
Read the full essay here. Seven decades after gaining its independence from the British Empire, India retains all the hallmarks of a functioning democracy: It holds reasonably free and fair elections, has a mostly independent judiciary plus a largely free press, and enjoys a robust and growing civil society. Yet thanks to India’s colonial inheritance…
July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3
Tanzania: Shrinking Space and Opposition Protest
Since Tanzania’s 2015 elections, rising repression and opposition protest have displaced an older dynamic of comparatively restrained and unchallenged dominance by the ruling party.
April 2017, Volume 28, Issue 2
The Freedom House Survey for 2016: The Dual Threat of Populists and Autocrats
In 2016, established democracies figured prominently on the list of countries experiencing declines in freedom, while emboldened autocracies stepped up their repression at home and interference abroad.
January 2017, Volume 28, Issue 1
Two Traditions of Liberalism
A review of The Anglo-American Tradition of Liberty: A View from Europe by João Carlos Espada.
October 2016, Volume 27, Issue 4
Tunisia: Ennahda’s New Course
Tunisia is a small country, but its influential Islamist party has taken a big step by separating its political wing from its religious activities.
July 2014, Volume 25, Issue 3
Is Small Really Beautiful? The Microstate Mistake
Tiny countries have come in for praise as miniature models of democracy, but closer examination tells a mainly more somber tale.
April 2014, Volume 25, Issue 2
The Freedom House Survey for 2013: The Democratic Leadership Gap
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.
April 2013, Volume 24, Issue 2
Defunding Dissent: Restrictions on Aid to NGOs
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?
January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
Regime Types and Democratic Sequencing
How should we define the stages of democracy and their sequencing? Although some scholars argue that the rule of law should come first, today it should be viewed as the final piece of the liberal-democratic puzzle.
July 2012, Volume 23, Issue 3
Hungary’s Illiberal Turn: Disabling the Constitution
In Hungary’s 2010 general elections, Fidesz won 68 percent of the seats in parliament—allowing it to impose a wholly new constitutional order.
April 2012, Volume 23, Issue 2
Southeast Asia: Minding the Gap Between Democracy and Governance
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
Turkey Under the AKP: Are Civil Liberties Safe?
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…
January 2006, Volume 17, Issue 1
The Surprising Significance of African Elections
Data from Africa show that repeated elections, regardless of their relative freeness or fairness,appear to have a positive impact on the growth of civil liberties and democratic values.
January 1997, Volume 8, Issue 1
Democracy and Liberty: The Cultural Connection
Read the full essay here.
April 1996, Volume 7, Issue 2
Russia Between Elections: The Travails of Liberalism
Read the full essay here.
July 1995, Volume 6, Issue 3
Trouble in Paradise
A review of To Catch a Traitor in Lee Kuan Yew’s Prison, by Francis T. Seow.
October 1993, Volume 4, Issue 4
The Challenge of Ethnic Conflict: Democracy in Divided Societies
Read the full essay here.
October 1993, Volume 4, Issue 4
The Challenge of Ethnic Conflict: The Fate of Minorities in Eastern Europe
Read the full essay here.
July 1993, Volume 4, Issue 3
Philosophy and Democracy
A review of The Ennobling of Democracy: The Challenge of the Postmodern Age, by Thomas Pangle.
July 1993, Volume 4, Issue 3
The Measure of Freedom
A review of Freedom House’s Freedom in the World: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties, 1992-1993.
Why This Election Is India’s Most Important
Voters are choosing more than the parties and politicians who will represent them. It is something more basic: The future of India’s secular democracy is on the ballot.
Why Vladimir Kara-Murza Gave Up His Freedom
The Russian dissident journalist and activist knew if he returned to Russia he would be imprisoned or worse. But he was plagued by one question that compelled him to go.