Free Articles | Page 5 | Journal of Democracy

October 2017, Volume 28, Issue 4

The Kremlin Emboldened: What Is Putinism?

M. Steven Fish

Under Vladimir Putin, Russia’s ruling class again claims to represent a superior alternative to liberal democracy. How can we theorize this regime? Putinism is a form of autocracy that is conservative, populist, and personalistic. Its conservatism means that Putinism prioritizes maintaining the status quo and avoiding instability. Conservatism also overlaps with Putinism’s populism in crowd-pleasing broadsides against gay rights and feminism, but gives…

October 2017, Volume 28, Issue 4

The Kremlin Emboldened: Putin Is Not Russia

Vladimir V. Kara-Murza

More Russians are rejecting the Kremlin’s corruption and authoritarianism. They—and not the regime—are Russia’s future.

July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3

The Real Lessons of the Interwar Years

Analogies with interwar Europe are often misdirected. In the 1920s and 1930s, regime breakdowns occurred in struggling new democracies, but established democratic systems exhibited remarkable endurance.

July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3

The Pipe Dream of Undemocratic Liberalism

Sheri Berman

A look at liberal democracy’s complex historical evolution shows that elite fantasies of liberalism without democracy are ill-founded. Authoritarian legacies and democratic deficits lie at the core of trends that threaten liberal rights.

July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3

India’s Democracy at 70: Growth, Inequality, and Nationalism

Ashutosh Varshney

Of late, Indian democracy has been confronted with a new political economy. Strong economic growth over the last three decades has generated the world’s fourth-largest collection of dollar billionaires and the third-largest middle class, both for the first time in Indian history, while still leaving the single largest concentration of the poor behind. In a…

April 2017, Volume 28, Issue 2

The End of the Postnational Illusion

Ghia Nodia

With the advance of modernization, nationalism was supposed to fade away. Yet everywhere we look, even in advanced democracies, nationalism’s influence seems larger than ever. What did we get wrong?

April 2017, Volume 28, Issue 2

The 2016 U.S. Election

The Editors

The Editors’ introduction to “The 2016 U.S. Election.”

April 2017, Volume 28, Issue 2

The 2016 U.S. Election: The Populist Moment

William A. Galston

Rising populism in the U.S. and beyond is calling into question the liberal-democratic bargain that has defined the postwar era. What led to Americans’ present revolt against elites, and what are its implications?

April 2017, Volume 28, Issue 2

The 2016 U.S. Election: Can Democracy Survive the Internet?

Nathaniel Persily

Traditional intermediary institutions such as parties and the legacy media are not what they once were, and they are not coming back. What are the implications of new social media and digital-campaign techniques?

January 2017, Volume 28, Issue 1

The Signs of Deconsolidation

Political scientists have long assumed that “democratic consolidation” is a one-way street, but survey evidence of declining support for democracy from across the established democracies suggests that deconsolidation is a genuine danger.

January 2017, Volume 28, Issue 1

Britain After Brexit: A Nation Divided

The referendum campaign and its aftermath have exposed fault lines between the “two Britains” that have been long in the making and that pose stark questions about national values and identity.

October 2016, Volume 27, Issue 4

The Specter Haunting Europe: Distinguishing Liberal Democracy’s Challengers

Takis S. Pappas

Liberal democracy in Europe today is under siege from a variety of political forces, but it is critical to recognize the distinctions among them.

October 2016, Volume 27, Issue 4

The Specter Haunting Europe: The Unraveling of the Post-1989 Order

Ivan Krastev

What some had thought would be the “end of history” has instead turned out to be the “new world disorder.” Democratic liberalism may have no new ideological rival, but older identities are powerfully reasserting themselves.

October 2016, Volume 27, Issue 4

Iraq’s Year of Rage

Mieczysław P. Boduszyński

Iraqis of all ethnic and sectarian stripes are fed up with the ineptitude and corruption of their political leaders, parties, and government institutions.

July 2016, Volume 27, Issue 3

The Danger of Deconsolidation: The Democratic Disconnect

Is democratic deconsolidation underway in the United States and Europe? In recent years, support for democracy, especially among millennials, has been dwindling in a number of established democracies.

July 2016, Volume 27, Issue 3

25 Years After the USSR: What’s Gone Wrong?

Henry E. Hale

A quarter-century after the Soviet breakup, democracy has hardly fared well across the vast Eurasian landmass. Why has this seemingly promising gain for freedom produced such disappointing results?

July 2016, Volume 27, Issue 3

Xi Jinping’s Maoist Revival

Suisheng Zhao

Far from being a reformer, as some had hoped, President Xi Jinping has launched the most sweeping ideological campaign seen in China since Mao. Xi is mixing nationalism, Leninism, and Maoism in ways that he hopes will cement continued one-party Communist rule.

April 2016, Volume 27, Issue 2

The Puzzle of the Chinese Middle Class

Andrew J. Nathan

Seymour Martin Lipset argued that economic development would enlarge the middle class, and that the middle class would support democracy. To what extent will this general proposition prove true of China?

April 2016, Volume 27, Issue 2

Latin America’s New Turbulence: Crisis and Integrity in Brazil

Marcus André Melo

Public anger at revelations of widespread corruption, along with the rising cost of coalition politics, has brought Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff to the brink of impeachment. Yet the crisis has also revealed the strength of the country’s law-enforcement and judicial institutions.

April 2016, Volume 27, Issue 2

Burma Votes for Change: The Challenges Ahead

Igor Blaževič

Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy swept Burma’s November 2015 elections. Will the new NLD-led government be able to live up to high expectations that it will deliver better governance, national reconciliation, and some form of federalism?