Dangerous Diplomacy: Why Placating Putin Now Could Doom Ukrainian Democracy Later

In an essay for Foreign Policy based on his article for the January issue of the Journal, James Loxton shows how one of Latin America’s most unequal and corrupt states is also one of its freest and wealthiest.

In a year marked by high political drama, economic unrest, and rising assaults on democracy, we at the Journal of Democracy sought to provide insight and analysis of the forces that imperil freedom. Here are our 10 most-read essays of 2021.

Tarek Masoud, a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Democracy, is professor of public policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is the author of Counting Islam: Religion, Class, and Elections in Egypt (2014) and of The Arab Spring: Pathways of Repression and Reform with Jason Brownlee and…

In an article for Foreign Policy based on his essay in the July issue of the Journal, Péter Krekó shows that authoritarians are exaggerating their power and influence abroad. And democratic publics increasingly believe them.

Nilay Saiya, whose essay “Why Freedom Defeats Terrorism” appeared in our April issue, argues in a Slate piece based on his article that civil liberties—not crackdowns—are the key to preventing terrorism.

In an interview with The Signal and a Foreign Policy piece based on his April article in the Journal, Christian Welzel argues that the global shift toward democratic values runs deeper than today’s autocratic upswell.

On 3 December 2020, renowned China scholar Minxin Pei delivered the 17th Annual Lipset Lecture on Democracy in the World. Read his reflections on “Totalitarianism’s Long Shadow,” based on the lecture, in the April Journal.

At NPR, Jeff Conroy-Krutz discusses rising support for media crackdowns in Africa, while Jarosław Kuisz and Karolina Wigura consider the appeal of East-Central Europe’s populists in Foreign Policy.

On 23 January 2020, Journal of Democracy editorial board co-chairs Lucan Way and Steven Levitsky sat down with the Journal’s Brent Kallmer to discuss the new competitive authoritarianism that has emerged in some countries with relatively strong democratic traditions and institutions.

“To understand why liberal democracy is on the defensive,” writes William A. Galston, “there is no better place to start than the 30th-anniversary edition of the Journal of Democracy.” Read more in Galston’s full article on “Liberal Democracy’s Threats From Within.”

William (“Will”) Dobson, most recently chief international editor at NPR, has held senior editorial posts at Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and Slate. He is author of The Dictator’s Learning Curve: Inside the Global Battle for Democracy (2012). Read the full press release here.

At the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage, read Alence and Pitcher’s take on South Africa’s 8 May 2019 national elections, and stay tuned for an expanded analysis in the October 2019 JoD. Plus, read Alence’s 2004 Journal article (free through May 31) for a deeper look into the history of South Africa’s democracy.

In her recent piece for the Monkey Cage blog, Victoria Tin-bor Hui discusses what the sentencing of Umbrella Movement leaders means for those struggling for democracy in Hong Kong. Read her article on the Umbrella Movement protests from the April 2015 JoD, free of charge through May 24.

Hong Kong law professor Benny Tai, who on April 24 received a sixteen-month prison sentence in connection with his role in the 2014 Occupy Central movement, reflected in the April 2019 Journal on the significance of the Tiananmen Square protests for Hong Kong’s democrats. Read a shortened version of his essay at the Diplomat.

In a follow-up to his widely discussed Washington Post essay “The Strongmen Strike Back,” Robert Kagan recommends the JoD’s January 2019 cluster “The Road to Digital Unfreedom” as a resource on “how new technologies have become tools of dictatorship.”