January 2025, Volume 36, Issue 1
Covid-19 swept across Latin America with devastating effects. But it had unexpected positive consequences too, as citizens ousted inept politicians and pushed back against the inequities laid bare by the pandemic.
January 2025, Volume 36, Issue 1
Democracies — facing gridlock and polarization — often fall short. But it should be remembered that dictatorships do even more harm.
October 2024, Volume 35, Issue 4
The People’s Republic of China has entered a new age, abandoning the ideological openness of the reform era and the socialist legacy of the revolutionary period. Under Xi Jinping, regime stability trumps all — and the PRC is weaker and less stable as a result.
July 2024, Volume 35, Issue 3
If democracies did a better job “delivering” for their citizens, so the thinking goes, people would not be so ready to embrace antidemocratic alternatives. Not so. This conventional wisdom about democratic backsliding is seldom true and often not accurate at all.
July 2024, Volume 35, Issue 3
The Salvadoran president’s “iron fist” policies have become one of the most popular political brands in Latin America. But the very reasons that explain his success in El Salvador point to why his repressive approach will not succeed elsewhere.
April 2023, Volume 34, Issue 2
Vladimir Putin’s reputation as a skillful leader was buoyed by years of economic good fortune. But when his regime faltered, his rule quickly descended into the fearful, repressive, and paranoid state we see today.
October 2022, Volume 33, Issue 4
Future state-building missions must learn from the failure of past U.S. interventions: It is critical to work with local power-brokers rather than relying on a centralized state.
January 2022, Volume 33, Issue 1
The Afghan republic’s destruction was sewn into its founding. The international community’s missteps are more responsible for its failure than the country’s supposedly endemic corruption.
October 2021, Volume 32, Issue 4
A weakened mandate from voters and perennial state dysfunction are putting Mexico’s populist president in a bind. Will he further damage democracy to fulfill his promises for change?
October 2021, Volume 32, Issue 4
Majorities across the globe claim to support democratic rule, but their definitions of it vary widely. A look at where publics are willing to exchange their democratic principles for better results—and where they will not.
October 2021, Volume 32, Issue 4
Shortcomings in governance and electoral administration may be accelerating India’s slide to autocracy. Were these flaws embedded in Indian democracy from the start?
April 2021, Volume 32, Issue 2
The military could not bear Aung San Suu Kyi’s enduring popularity and her party’s continued success at the polls. But the generals may have miscalculated how much the people detest them.
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
While analysts of populism have focused on economic woes and “cultural backlash,” a thirst for the restoration of order may better explain the appeal of authoritarian populists in fragile democracies where governance is falling short.
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
India’s Constitution has long seemed stable, but the rise of an ethnic, absolute, and opaque state is changing the constitutional order in momentous and disturbing ways.
October 2020, Volume 31, Issue 4
The Editors’ introduction to “Covid vs. Democracy.”
October 2020, Volume 31, Issue 4
By highlighting the deficiencies of authoritarian-populist president Jair Bolsonaro’s rule, the covid-19 pandemic is likely to leave Brazil’s democracy intact but even more brittle.
October 2020, Volume 31, Issue 4
India’s covid-19 response has accelerated the country’s slide toward competitive authoritarian rule by centralizing decision making, undermining federalism, and providing new pretexts for stifling dissent.
October 2020, Volume 31, Issue 4
South Africa’s government sought to heed expert advice with its covid lockdown, yet shortcomings in state capacity fatally undermined both the virus response and efforts to address its devastating economic toll.
October 2020, Volume 31, Issue 4
Despite impressive achievements in socioeconomic development, Bangladesh has struggled with establishing democracy and is now effectively under one-party rule.
July 2020, Volume 31, Issue 3
For all the concern over authoritarianism’s advance, the competence of governance may be what determines the next chapter in the struggle between democracy and dictatorship.
April 2020, Volume 31, Issue 2
The coronavirus outbreak has exposed the corrupt and rotten core of the Chinese Communist Party’s dictatorial rule over China. It is a moment of revelation. Can it also become one that leads to change?
April 2020, Volume 31, Issue 2
Ordinary citizens in East Asia, Latin America, and Africa are increasingly disappointed with democracy and its ability to deliver.
January 2020, Volume 31, Issue 1
Anticorruption has become universally accepted as a norm; that may tell us something about why it struggles in practice.
April 2019, Volume 30, Issue 2
The CCP’s strategies for delivering economic and social benefits without democracy are proving deeply flawed. A particular threat to China’s stability is posed by the country’s restless single males.
July 2015, Volume 26, Issue 3
Rwanda under Paul Kagame has been hailed for its visionary leadership, economic progress, and reforms in education, health, and agriculture. Yet the regime’s autocratic rule, human-rights abuses, persecution of the Hutu majority, and growing inequality point to an ominous future.
January 2015, Volume 26, Issue 1
The failure to establish modern, well-governed states has been the Achilles heel of recent democratic transitions, as democratization without state modernization can actually lower the quality of governance.
January 2014, Volume 25, Issue 1
Improving governance in the EU’s new member states remains a huge challenge for the European project. Why has the EU succeeded in promoting democracy among its postcommunist members but failed in promoting good governance?
October 2013, Volume 24, Issue 4
What is the relationship between high-quality state administration and democracy? A look back at modern Greece and Italy, along with Germany and the United States, provides some insights.
October 2013, Volume 24, Issue 4
“Governance,” once merely a synonym for government, has taken on new meanings that tend to downplay the importance of the political. But can “good governance” be achieved today without the protections of liberal democracy?
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 2009, Volume 20, Issue 1
The case of Finland challenges conventional thinking on clean politics. Can it serve as a model for its more corrupt counterparts?
October 2008, Volume 19, Issue 4
Fifteen years after the wave of democratization crested in Africa, the region still grapples with an economic malaise that is disappointing popular expectations and undermining the legitimacy of electoral regimes.
July 2008, Volume 19, Issue 3
Latin America’s recent experience shows that effective democratic governance is difficult to achieve and depends on many factors, some of them context-specific. Nonetheless, it is possible to draw some general lessons.
October 2006, Volume 17, Issue 4
Embedding a vibrant market economy into strong democratic political institutions is the best way to ensure that political and economic empowerment play complementary roles improving the lives of citizens around the world.
January 2006, Volume 17, Issue 1
Vladimir Putin has pulled the plug on democracy in Russia in an effort to strengthen the authority of the central state. But a look at Russian federal relations shows that the state is growing weaker rather than stronger.
January 2006, Volume 17, Issue 1
Measurements that rely on perceptions of corruption can be misleading. What is needed is a method of gauging how well a country has set itself up to defend public integrity systematically and in all its dimensions.
July 2002, Volume 13, Issue 3
Until now, globalization and democratization have been mutually reinforcing, but in the future globalization may pose serious challenges for democracy.
April 2002, Volume 13, Issue 2
The effects of electoral systems and of federalism are usually examined separately, but a review of the leading federations shows that it is essential to consider the interaction between the two in designing democratic institutions.
July 1999, Volume 10, Issue 3
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April 1998, Volume 9, Issue 2
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January 1998, Volume 9, Issue 1
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October 1997, Volume 8, Issue 4
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April 1997, Volume 8, Issue 2
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April 1997, Volume 8, Issue 2
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January 1997, Volume 8, Issue 1
A review of Local Government in Latin America, by R. Andrew Nickson.
July 1995, Volume 6, Issue 3
Read the full essay here.
April 1995, Volume 6, Issue 2
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April 1995, Volume 6, Issue 2
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April 1995, Volume 6, Issue 2
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April 1995, Volume 6, Issue 2
A review of Civil Society and the State in Africa, edited by John W. Harbeson, Donald Rothchild, and Naomi Chazan.
January 1995, Volume 6, Issue 1
A review of Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, by Robert D. Putnam, with Robert Leonardi and Raffaella Y. Nanetti.
July 1993, Volume 4, Issue 3
Read the full essay here.
January 1993, Volume 4, Issue 1
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July 1992, Volume 3, Issue 3
A review of Democracy and Discontent: India’s Growing Crisis of Governability, by Atul Kohli and The Politics of India Since Independence, by Paul Brass.
Fall 1991, Volume 2, Issue 4
Read the full essay here.
Summer 1991, Volume 2, Issue 3
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Summer 1991, Volume 2, Issue 3
A review of Democracy in Botswana: The Proceedings of a Symposium Held in Gaborone, 1-5 August 1988, edited by John Holm and Patrick Molutsi.
Fall 1990, Volume 1, Issue 4
A review of Unruly Corporatism: The Associational Life in Twentieth-Century Egypt, by Robert Bianchi.
Summer 1990, Volume 1, Issue 3
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The famed economist and Nobel laureate is charged with repairing what remains of Bangladesh’s democracy. But is someone even as accomplished as Yunus up to the task?
The country’s recent elections revealed deep fissures in Iranian society and there is already growing disillusionment with the new president. With mounting economic worries, Iran is in a volatile state.
The Gulf kingdom has been a rare democratic experiment. But gridlock and the Emir’s mounting impatience with Kuwaiti politics may be on the cusp of bringing it to an end.
National politics is increasingly overshadowing everything else, even as local government does more and more. Here’s how to right the balance.
