April 2024, Volume 35, Issue 2
Liberal societies are those which offer refuge from the very people they empower—through individual choice, mobility, and the possibility of exit. This is the form of liberty that most clearly elevates the liberal project.
April 2024, Volume 35, Issue 2
The power of liberalism—though limited and never revered—enables it to serve as refuge while taming the demons of liberal society.
April 2024, Volume 35, Issue 2
The liberal emphasis on unhindered mobility comes with costs, particularly for those unable to leave.
April 2024, Volume 35, Issue 2
What distinguishes liberal societies from all others is that they tolerate immoral behavior. It is this tolerance that protects us not just from our leaders but ourselves.
April 2024, Volume 35, Issue 2
The belief we can “escape” remains a part of the liberal imagination. In truth, it is realized in the form of detachment from any community, an exodus without refuge.
April 2024, Volume 35, Issue 2
A liberal society must reckon the demands of the common good, while offering what we most crave—something worth sacrificing for.
July 2023, Volume 34, Issue 3
Democratic capitalism is in crisis. But if we are looking to salvage liberalism’s ideals, we should look to the course set by postwar Germany. It offers powerful lessons for the present.
July 2020, Volume 31, Issue 3
Liberal democracy has drawn its share of false indictments. But like any form of government, it has genuine weaknesses that can at best be managed. How well liberals navigate these inherent tensions may help determine the future of freedom.
January 2020, Volume 31, Issue 1
Robert Michels’s classic work on the “iron law of oligarchy” can help us to understand why there is so much dissatisfaction with representative democracy.
October 2019, Volume 30, Issue 4
A review of Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day by Sheri Berman.
January 2019, Volume 30, Issue 1
At present, the key struggle for the future of liberal democracy appears as if it will be unfolding among parties and thinkers on the right.
July 2018, Volume 29, Issue 3
Thirty years ago in Central and Eastern Europe, belief in an open society and a sense of reasserted national and indeed European identity seemed to go hand-in-hand. But that was then.
July 2018, Volume 29, Issue 3
For countries emerging from communism, the post-1989 imperative to “be like the West” has generated discontent and even a “return of the repressed,” as the region feels old nationalist stirrings and new demographic pressures.
April 2018, Volume 29, Issue 2
The ability of liberal democracies around the world to translate popular views into public policy has been declining. Yet there is no easy way to overcome this trend without weakening the capacity of governments to solve some of the most pressing challenges of the coming decades.
July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3
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.
April 2017, Volume 28, Issue 2
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?
January 2017, Volume 28, Issue 1
A review of The Anglo-American Tradition of Liberty: A View from Europe by João Carlos Espada.
October 2016, Volume 27, Issue 4
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.
April 2016, Volume 27, Issue 2
Ten of the world’s twelve largest countries are “electoral democracies.” Yet a look at politics beneath the national level reveals patterns of illiberalism that mark out a new frontier for democratic research and activism.
January 2016, Volume 27, Issue 1
Across East-Central Europe, the political center ground has long been characterized by the uneasy cohabitation of liberal and illiberal norms, but the latter have been gradually overpowering the former.
January 2016, Volume 27, Issue 1
Is democracy in East-Central Europe suffering because of a lack of liberal zeal among elites, as Dawson and Hanley contend, or is it because liberal policies have failed to deliver on their promises?
October 2015, Volume 26, Issue 4
A close look at secular parties in the Middle East today raises doubts about whether they are ready for prime time.
July 2015, Volume 26, Issue 3
Europe in the Middle Ages was hardly democratic, but it did have law-based institutions that could and did stay the hands of kings, laying a crucial basis for future state-building and democracy-building alike.
July 2015, Volume 26, Issue 3
It is fine to acknowledge the importance of law-based rule to the eventual rise of modern democracy, but we must not overlook the even greater contribution of the idea of equality.
January 2014, Volume 25, Issue 1
Liberalism as a governing order is barely two centuries old. A response to the great alternatives presented by Europe’s political history, it represents a unique synthesis of the ancient and the modern. But globalization has cast a deep shadow across liberalism’s future.
January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
Egypt’s liberals, though they do not dominate political life and perhapsnever will, remain a crucial force in shaping the country’s politics.
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?
April 2012, Volume 23, Issue 2
Of all the “Arab Spring” countries, so far only Tunisia has managed to make a transition to democracy. Tunisians now have a chance to show the world a new example of how religion, society, and the state can relate to one another under democratic conditions.
January 2012, Volume 23, Issue 1
Morocco was not immune to the 2011 upheavals in the Arab world, but the country’s monarchy deftly managed the crisis through cosmetic constitutional reform.
January 2012, Volume 23, Issue 1
Read the full essay here. In the West, Turkey is considered a model for a secular democracy in the Muslim world, yet the country finds itself mired in a crisis of civil rights and liberties under a third term of the pro-Islamic AKP government. Ironically, while the government maintains a discourse on political reform—including constitutional…
April 2010, Volume 21, Issue 2
How do democracies deal with the deep divisions created by race, ethnicity, religion, and language? The cases of Canada, India, and the United States show that democratic institutions—notably, competitive elections and independent judiciaries—can bridge divides and build stability, but they must find a way to manage the tension between individual and group equality.
January 2010, Volume 21, Issue 1
In recent years, scholars have begun to focus on the sources of "authoritarian resilience." But democracy has also shown surprising resilience, in part because the disorders to which it is prone tend to counteract each other.
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Like all contemporary nondemocratic systems, the Chinese system suffers from weak legitimacy at the level of regime type. The most likely form of transition for China remains the model of Tiananmen, when three elements came together: a robust plurality of disaffected citizens, a catalytic event, and a split in the leadership. Had China chosen the…
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
The secularization hypothesis has failed, and failed spectacularly. We must find a new paradigm to help us understand the complexities of the relationship between religion and democracy.
January 2009, Volume 20, Issue 1
For most of history, a closed social order has seemed the most “natural” way to manage the problem of controlling the use of force. The rise of modern democracy can be understood only in the context of the transition to open-access orders.
January 2009, Volume 20, Issue 1
While the belief in democracy has spread around the world, it has begun to crumble in some of the West’s finest academic institutions.
October 2008, Volume 19, Issue 4
The military regime opened up the media sector to more competition and private broadcasters in 2002, and the ramifications turned out to be vast.
January 2008, Volume 19, Issue 1
In order for a country to move beyond mere electoral democracy, ordinary people must acquire resources and values that allow them to pressure elites. Human empowerment is essential for the development of "effective democracy."
October 2007, Volume 18, Issue 4
The paradox of East-Central Europe is that the rise of populism is an outcome not of the failures but of the successes of postcommunist liberalism. *This is a corrected text of the print and original online version of this essay, which lacked proper citation for some of its sources. This is the only version that…
July 2007, Volume 18, Issue 3
In certain circumstances, both liberalism and popular rule can obstruct rather than promote state-building.
July 2007, Volume 18, Issue 3
China is gradually changing. In the coming years, the pursuit of individual dignity and human rights will increasingly come to the fore.
July 2007, Volume 18, Issue 3
A review of A World Beyond Politics? A Defense of the Nation-State by Pierre Manent.
January 2007, Volume 18, Issue 1
Many critics of democracy promotion assert that the rule of law and a well-functioning state should be in place before a society democratizes, but this strategy of "sequencing" is based on a set of mistaken premises.
January 2007, Volume 18, Issue 1
Those who argue that democracy requires preconditions often cite the example of gradual unfolding set by the established democracies. A glance at history, however, shows that even today's most placid democracies have "backstories" as turbulent as anything found in the developing world today.
April 2005, Volume 16, Issue 2
During the early years of south korea's transition to democracy, expanding popular rule and deepening individual rights went hand-in-hand. But Roh Moo Hyun's presiency has exposed rifts between majority rule and constitutionalism that the country's judiciary is struggling to bridge.
October 2003, Volume 14, Issue 4
For about a century after 1850, the Middle East enjoyed an imperfect yet real "Liberal Age." The roots of some of the key institutions of that era remain today. Can they be nurtured into a second spring?
October 2003, Volume 14, Issue 4
A review of The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad by Fareed Zakaria.
April 2003, Volume 14, Issue 2
The Editors’ introduction to “What is Liberal Islam?”
April 2003, Volume 14, Issue 2
There is an emerging current of enlightened thought in the Muslim world today, but it is all too often wrongly labeled and poorly understood.
April 2003, Volume 14, Issue 2
An “Islamic Reformation” is not a necessary condition for the emergence of democracy in the Muslim world; what is most needed is a political reformation.
April 2003, Volume 14, Issue 2
Liberal Islam remains marginal because it is politically suppressed; in truth, it represents the predominant political hopes of Muslims around the world.
April 2003, Volume 14, Issue 2
If they are to understand Islam authentically and to embrace the modern world freely, Muslims must take a new attitude toward their traditions of interpretation.
January 2003, Volume 14, Issue 1
The “system of separations” is a historic achievement that must be defended even against normatively “purer” understandings of democracy.
January 2003, Volume 14, Issue 1
After a decade of partial liberalization begun by the late King Hussein, freedoms are now being rolled back by an anxious regime.
October 2002, Volume 13, Issue 4
Politics in the Arab Middle East is often a matter of powerholders first liberalizing — and then "deliberalizing" — public life in order to first maintain their rule. But this "survival strategy" is a dead end.
January 2002, Volume 13, Issue 1
A review of Afghanistan’s Endless War: State Failure, Regional Politics, and the Rise of the Taliban by Larry P. Goodson; and Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, by Ahmed Rashid.
October 2001, Volume 12, Issue 4
Direct democracy has come in for praise as being closer to the people’s will than representative democracy. A closer look at the sources of public support, however, reveals some surprises.
July 2001, Volume 12, Issue 3
An increase in women’s political mobilization has accompanied the global trend toward democratization, but women’s movements have taken diverse paths in different regions of the world.
April 2001, Volume 12, Issue 2
In postindustrial societies, class is less important as a source of party cleavage. With the European left embracing a market-friendly “third way,” political divisions in Europe are increasingly resembling those in the United States.
October 2000, Volume 11, Issue 4
Global trends toward economic and political liberalization are presenting East Asian and Latin American democracies with increasingly convergent international opportunities and constraints.
July 2000, Volume 11, Issue 3
A specter is haunting China-the specter of classical liberalism.
April 1999, Volume 10, Issue 2
Read the full essay here.
January 1999, Volume 10, Issue 1
Read the full essay here.
October 1998, Volume 9, Issue 4
A review of After 1989: Morals, Revolution, and Civil Society, by Ralf Dahrendorf.
April 1998, Volume 9, Issue 2
Read the full essay here.
January 1997, Volume 8, Issue 1
Read the full essay here.
October 1996, Volume 7, Issue 4
A review of Enlightenment’s Wake: Politics and Culture at the Close of the Modern Age, by John Gray and An Intellectual History of Liberalism, by Pierre Manet.
April 1996, Volume 7, Issue 2
Read the full essay here.
January 1995, Volume 6, Issue 1
Read the full essay here.
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.
Spring 1990, Volume 1, Issue 2
A review of Islamic Liberalism: A Critique of Development Ideologies, by Leonard Binder.
On its 75th anniversary, the Atlantic Alliance should be celebrated for being more than the world’s greatest military compact. It’s an engine of democracy’s advance.
If liberal norms and institutions are to prevail, they need to be defended from the left and the right.
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.
