The Puzzle of the Chinese Middle Class
Seymour Martin Lipset famously argued that economic development would enlarge the middle class, and that the middle class would demand democracy. Writing in the latest issue of the Journal of… Read more »
Tag: Journal of Democracy
How Russia sanctions bite the Kremlin
The West’s unprecedented step to sanction post-communist Russia [in the wake of the invasion of Crimea] proves that the liberal democracies no longer consider Russia as a responsible partner or… Read more »
How to control corruption? The European experience
In recent years, the European Union has made an unprecedented effort to transform its periphery by exporting values such as rule of law, democracy and good governance. What should donors… Read more »
Is presidentialist democracy failing?
Perplexed by today’s turbulent American political scene? Not to worry: A distinguished political scientist wrote an essay 26 years ago that anticipated our predicament with eerie explanatory power. The only… Read more »
‘Great Surge’ marks end of the Third World
The assertion that democracy is better than autocracy at facilitating the move into prosperity butts up against the theory that authoritarianism is more conducive to rapid economic growth (as… Read more »
Threat to liberal democracy’s primacy overstated?
The fact that the world’s richest country after World War II had a liberal economy and system of government had important implications not only for the creation of an open… Read more »
How Ethiopia silences independent voices
After a tense year marked by widely-criticized elections in which Ethiopia’s ruling party won 100 percent of parliamentary seats, 2015 concluded with yet more repression in the East African nation,… Read more »
Why social media made but couldn’t save the Arab Spring
Five years ago this week, massive protests toppled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, marking the height of the Arab Spring. Empowered by access to social media sites like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook,… Read more »
Authoritarian trendsetters’ antidemocratic toolkit
Authoritarian trendsetters have created a modern antidemocratic toolkit that in many ways serves as the mirror image of democratic soft power, the National Endowment for Democracy’s Christopher Walker writes… Read more »
Strong presidencies may threaten democracy
Can other countries teach us anything about whether the U.S. president is too strong? asks John Carey, Wentworth professor in the social sciences at Dartmouth College. Many parliamentary democracies, like Germany… Read more »