Global democracy is under siege. According to Freedom House’s authoritative “Freedom in the World” report, 8 of 10 people in the world now live in countries rated either “Not Free”… Read more »
The experience of post-war Europe shows that if democracy is effective and responsive, there will be little constituency for explicit antidemocratic or radical appeals, and governments and other political actors… Read more »
Support for populist parties and agreement with populist views have diminished during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a “mega-dataset” assessing political attitudes of over half a million people across 109… Read more »
The uprisings of the Arab Spring seemed to represent a dramatic turning point in history, the sudden collapse of regimes and political systems few expected to be so fragile. But… Read more »
Ten years on, why did Egypt’s attempted democratic transition fail? What are the lasting effects of January 25 on politics and society? How does al-Sisi’s regime differ from Mubarak’s?… Read more »
Reversing the dangerous erosion of U.S. democracy is urgent, but the argument that this requires abandoning efforts to uphold democratic values elsewhere has it backwards, say two leading observers. Commitments… Read more »
A majority in nine countries across the Arab world feel they are living in significantly more unequal societies today than before the Arab spring, an era of uprisings, civil wars… Read more »
Ten years ago, as protests flared across the Arab world, Western governments failed to meet a date with destiny and help nurture dreams of democracy, missing an unprecedented chance to… Read more »
Wishful thinking is typical among opponents of authoritarian populists. But populist presidents and prime ministers, on average, stay in office twice as long as non-populist ones: six and a half… Read more »
In 1911, Robert Michels (1876-1936), an Italian political sociologist, published “Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy,” postulating the “iron law of oligarchy.” Michels, who… Read more »