In 2021, coups d’état ousted four heads of state in sub-Saharan Africa. Army interventions in Chad, Mali, Guinea and Sudan halted a years-long decline in military takeovers. Some heralded this… Read more »
How does political polarization affect democracy over the long-term? The findings of the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) data set are “not encouraging,” say Carnegie analysts Jennifer McCoy and Benjamin Press. Severe polarization… Read more »
Despite challenges that intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic, human rights defenders, civil society, independent media and other democratic forces have proven resilient, writes Ryan Arick, an assistant program officer at… Read more »
Latin American democracy is more resilient than appearances may suggest, according to a new report. Opinion polls show that only around a fifth to a quarter of Latin Americans might… Read more »
Although the full impact of December’s Summit for Democracy remains unclear, the gathering did serve at least two purposes, Carnegie analysts Frances Z. Brown and Thomas Carothers observe: First, it… Read more »
The danger posed by populism lies in the damage leaders can do to the norms and institutions of liberal democracy. However, a new report finds that, in most of the… Read more »
Are elements of global public opinion accepting or even supportive of the current authoritarian resurgence? A new academic study finds that while democracy is widely preferred as a system of… Read more »
For the fifth consecutive year, the number of countries moving in an authoritarian direction exceeds the number of countries moving towards democracy. But even if the long democratic recession is… Read more »
In the wake of the Biden administration’s Summit for Democracy, a formal Alliance of Democracies would provide a highly visible platform for fostering solidarity in the face of common threats and… Read more »
The sprawl of contemporary liberal values—from LGBTQ rights to gender equality to the rights of migrants—invites pushback in both democratic and nondemocratic states. It provides illiberal politicians with opportunities to… Read more »