Hager Ali
The study of regime types, Hager Ali argues, is imbalanced. Theories and concepts of democracy have received attention for decades. But amid the resurgence of autocracies, scholars of authoritarianism still do not have the luxury of nuanced typologies to dissect the broad spectrum of non-democratic regimes Read more
Sandrine Maljean-Dubois
Biodiversity receives less attention than climate when it comes to the challenges and accomplishments of international cooperation. Sandrine Maljean-Dubois observes that preparations for the forthcoming COP15 on biodiversity have gone largely unnoticed. And yet, the ongoing collapse of the planet's biomass is as worrying as climate change Read more
Andreas Schedler
Since its invention, representative democracy has been haunted by fears of 'majoritarian tyranny.' Critics have often dismissed these fears as the anti-democratic ideology of self-protective elites. Yet, Andreas Schedler argues, rather than antidemocratic, they are antipopulist, as they recognise the plurality and fallibility of the people Read more
Leonardo Fiorespino
Leonardo Fiorespino finds Jean-Paul Gagnon’s proposed lexicon of democracy wanting in its base assumptions around knowledge and arbitrariness. Moreover, he wonders, can we really trust 'democracy's words'? Read more
Alistair Cole
Incumbent French President Macron has been re-elected for a second five-year term. This is not a simple success story, Alistair Cole argues. The election revealed disturbing trends in French democracy. Read more
Ben Seyd
Can policymakers expect people to comply with official health restrictions out of fear rather than because they trust the government? Ben Seyd suggests the answer is no. Governments still need trust to motivate citizens to comply with important collective rules. Read more
Pablo Ouziel
Today, democratic imaginaries are diluted while parochial understandings of democracy are presented as universal. Such a state of affairs, argues Pablo Ouziel, calls for a deeply diverse speaking-with multilogue amongst democratic traditions Read more
Richard Sakwa
Richard Sakwa argues that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the culmination of a long period of increasing tensions between Russia and the West. The portents were not only ignored by the West, but misunderstood, and security concerns became part of a broader cultural alienation Read more
