Burma: Suu Kyi’s Missteps
Despite high hopes for progress toward democracy, the military’s power remains stubbornly entrenched, while Aung San Suu Kyi seems to lack the skills to run the government effectively.
January 2018
Volume 29, Issue 1
The Rise of Kleptocracy
The Rise of Kleptocracy: A Challenge for Democracy
As explained in the essays that follow, kleptocracy has become a potent threat to the integrity of democracy around the globe.
The Rise of Kleptocracy: The Dark Side of Globalization
The grand corruption enabled by the rise of offshore finance has come to follow a recurring pattern: steal, obscure, and spend.
The Rise of Kleptocracy: Laundering Cash, Whitewashing Reputations
To safeguard their ill-gotten gains, kleptocrats rely on a web of transnational relationships and the complicity of Western fixers.
The Rise of Kleptocracy: Autocrats versus Activists in Africa
Central African autocrats are using their stolen money to outmaneuver their opponents and deflect international criticism.
The Rise of Kleptocracy: Malaysia’s Missing Billions
One of the world’s worst public-corruption scandals shows how a lax international financial system enables massive graft in developing countries.
The Rise of Kleptocracy: Power and Plunder in Putin’s Russia
Russia’s ruling elite have used corruption not only to line their own pockets, but also as a tool of domestic political control and global power projection.
The Rise of Kleptocracy: Does China Fit the Model?
China has seen a staggering number of official corruption cases in recent years. But does it merit the label of kleptocracy?
Reevaluating Runoffs in Latin America
The worldwide popularity of runoff rules for presidential elections has grown strikingly in recent decades. In Latin America, contrary to scholarly expectations, this shift has had important benefits for democracy.
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.
Dashed Hopes and Extremism in Tunisia
Tunisia is now one of the Arab world’s most democratic countries, but it has also been producing worrisome numbers of recruits for groups such as ISIS. How can this paradox be explained?
Exchange
Exchange: Nativists Are Populists, Not Liberals
Takis Pappas argues that certain nativist parties of the populist right should be counted as liberal-democratic. This is a mistake; these parties do not truly merit that name.
Exchange: How to Tell Nativists from Populists
Contra Ben Margulies, one can clearly mark the boundaries that separate antidemocrats from democrats (nativists included), and nativists from populists.
Timor-Leste Votes: Parties and Patronage
In July 2017, Timor-Leste held its third parliamentary elections since independence. The party-centered campaign featured both enduring legacies of the revolutionary struggle and a distinct form of political patronage.
The Case for Democratic Persistence
A review of Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom by Condoleezza Rice.
Election Watch
Reports on elections in Argentina, Chile, the Czech Republic, Honduras, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Nepal, and Slovenia.
Documents on Democracy
International Forum for Democratic Studies report on "Sharp Power: Rising Authoritarian Influence"; Emmerson Mnangagwa's inaugural address as interim president of Zimbabwe; letter from Zimbabwean civil society organizations; address by U.K. prime minister Theresa May; statement by former Soviet political prisoners and dissidents.
Alfred C. Stepan (1936–2017)
A tribute in remembrance of Alfred C. Stepan (1936–2017).