October 2025, Volume 36, Issue 4
Artificial intelligence and its effects on democracy are a matter of choice, not fate. The concerns are longer term than the recent spate of worry about “generative” AI would suggest. The democratic conversation about AI has hardly begun.
April 2025, Volume 36, Issue 2
Voters around the world are losing faith in democracy’s ability to deliver and increasingly turning toward more authoritarian alternatives. To restore citizens’ confidence, democracies must show they can make progress without sacrificing accountability.
April 2025, Volume 36, Issue 2
Delivery matters, but so do leaders’ actions. Why have so many, in both strong and weak economies, been pushing against democratic constraints on their power, and why have those constraints failed to contain them?
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.
October 2023, Volume 34, Issue 4
An expansive underworld of hidden wealth lies beneath the everyday economy. This stealth network of tax havens, secret trusts, and offshore accounts is weakening democratic institutions and fueling our worst enemies.
October 2023, Volume 34, Issue 4
AI will transform work and entire economies. The potential benefits also bring a dire risk of rising inequality and job losses. But the worst outcomes can still be avoided.
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
A review of The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? by Michael J. Sandel.
January 2020, Volume 31, Issue 1
It is imperative to rethink how democracy support fits into today’s turbulent and threatening international political landscape.
July 2011, Volume 22, Issue 3
Despite India’s impressive achievements in democracy, economic development, and the rule of law, it remains home to a third of the world’s poor. Although it has successfully averted famine since independence, it still struggles to prevent chronic hunger.
July 2011, Volume 22, Issue 3
How did South Korea lift itself from destitution to affluence? And how was its ruthlessly authoritarian regime able to metamorphose into a stable democracy? Coopting the business and voluntary sectors to deliver welfare positioned the country to accomplish both.
October 2010, Volume 21, Issue 4
Latin America’s hard-won democratic gains must be defended by addressing he economic disparities fueling a drift toward populism.
July 2010, Volume 21, Issue 3
For the first time since the fall of Pinochet, the Chilean right has come to power via free elections. The long-ruling center-left coalition leaves behind many achievements, but also disturbing signs of a weakened party system.
October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
The recent global progress of democracy has been accompanied by increasing economic inequality. What are the implications for the quality of democracy and for its ability to endure?
October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
Latin American social policy has at times worked backwards, widening rather than narrowing economic and social inequalities. But new conditional cash-transfer programs seem to be producing positive outcomes.
October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
The countries of Central and Eastern Europe have been struggling to devise approaches to political economy that can bring stability, prosperity, and a measure of equality in a world dominated by global finance and exchange.
October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
Both Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe have undergone significant democratization in recent years. Yet each region retains a distinctive approach, grounded in its own history, to common problems of social welfare and inequality.
October 2008, Volume 19, Issue 4
The Editors’ introduction to “Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy.”
October 2008, Volume 19, Issue 4
Many of today’s developing-world and postcommunist democracies are at risk of reversal. What are the key factors that lead to democratic collapse?
October 2008, Volume 19, Issue 4
"The Latin American Experience” argues that democratic stability requires policies that limit the society’s degree of substantive economic and social inequality.
October 2008, Volume 19, Issue 4
The more-democratic postcommunist countries have maintained stronger social safety nets than their authoritarian counterparts, but they must reassess their welfare policies to address emerging social challenges.
January 2002, Volume 13, Issue 1
A decade after the end of apartheid, South African democracy may be headed for trouble because the country has yet to fulfill the three requirements of democratic consolidation: inequality-reducing economic growth, stable institutions, and a supportive political culture.
April 2001, Volume 12, Issue 2
Despite recent progress in the government’s negotiations with rebel groups, Colombia’s problems remain acute: continued violence, growing human rights abuses, severe income inequality, and a depressed economy.
January 2000, Volume 11, Issue 1
Read the full essay here.
Fall 1990, Volume 1, Issue 4
Read the full essay here.
Our rising levels of inequality have put its ideals in crisis. These are the simple principles that can help bring it back from the edge.
