How constitutional democracy decays
There are two paths of democratic decay – authoritarian reversion and constitutional retrogression, according to the University of Chicago’s Aziz Huq and Tom Ginsburg: A reversion is a rapid and… Read more »
Category: democracy recession
Turkey’s democratic regression: ‘pushback will have to come from within’
The night of July 15 marked a distinct moment in Turkish democratic history as hundreds of thousands of Turks took to the streets to defy a coup attempt, notes A…. Read more »
Specter of ‘lost Left’ haunting Europe’s democracies
Common explanations for Europe’s malaise aren’t wrong, but they don’t provide the full picture, argues Sheri Berman, a professor of political science at Barnard College. A key cause for Europe’s… Read more »
What’s behind the worldwide decline of democracy?
The history of democracy globally is strewn with examples of extremists and demagogues manipulating prejudice, insecurity, and fear in a bid for power, argues Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at… Read more »
ANC response to poll losses startles S. Africa
When South African voters last month handed the African National Congress its worst-ever losses, seemingly chastened party leaders said they would engage in “introspection.” They promised to reach out to… Read more »
Welcome to demokrasi: Turkey’s ‘new form’ of illiberal democracy
After a decade in power, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan presides over a new form of democracy that the west neither likes nor understands: an authoritarian regime that exalts the… Read more »
Africa Experiencing ‘Democracy Fatigue’?
In the early 1990s, a wave of democracy swept the African continent, leading many observers to proclaim enthusiastically that the region was experiencing its “second independence,” analyst Mamadou Gazibo writes… Read more »
Global democratic recession – for now
The politicians who captured the spirit of the early 1990s were inspirational democrats such as South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, Václav Havel in Czechoslovakia — and liberal reformers such as Mikhail… Read more »
Global downturn in civil and political rights – key implications
There is a downturn in civil and political rights in many of the world’s largest and most geopolitically significant countries, especially Russia, China, and Turkey, but also other countries such… Read more »
Reversing democracy’s retreat? Reasons to be hopeful
Democracy is being challenged today as never before since the end of the Cold War, notes Carl Gershman, president of the National Endowment for Democracy. Freedom House has recorded ten consecutive years… Read more »