Political parties are one of the core institutions of democracy. But in democracies around the world--rich and poor, Western and non-Western--there is growing evidence of low or declining public confidence in parties. In membership, organization, and popular involvement and commitment, political parties are not what they used to be. But are they in decline, or are they simply changing their forms and functions? In contrast to authors of most previous works on political parties, which tend to focus exclusively on long-established Western democracies, the contributors to this volume cover...

The latest volume in this popular series focuses on the best ways to evaluate and improve the quality of new democratic regimes. The essays in part one elaborate and refine several themes of democratic quality: the rule of law, accountability, freedom, equality, and responsiveness. The second part features six comparative cases, each of which applies these thematic elements to two neighboring countries: Brazil and Chile, South Africa and Ghana, Italy and Spain, Romania and Poland, India and Bangladesh, and Taiwan and Korea.

Contributors: David Beetham, University of Leeds;...

The newest volume in the acclaimed Journal of Democracy series addresses electoral systems and democracy. As the number of democracies has increased around the world, a heated debate has emerged among experts about which system best promotes the consolidation of democracy. Is proportional representation, a majoritarian system, a mixture of the two, or some other system the best for new democracies? This book compares the experiences of diverse countries, from Latin America to southern Africa, from Uruguay, Japan, and Taiwan to Israel, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

Contributors: Joel...

Since its inception, the Journal of Democracy has served as the premier venue for scholarship on democratization. The newest volume in the acclaimed Journal of Democracy book series, Democracy: A Reader brings together the seminal works that have appeared in its pages in nearly twenty years of publication.

Democracy is in retreat around the world, giving renewed relevance and urgency to fundamental questions about the system that nevertheless remains the ideal standard of governance. Contributors ask: What exactly is democracy, and what sustains it? What...

At a time when democracy seems to be in retreat in many parts of the world, Africa presents a more mixed picture. A number of African countries have been convulsed by high-profile crises, while others have quietly continued making progress on the difficult path toward democratic stability.

Democratization in Africa: Progress and Retreat brings into focus the complex landscape of African politics by pairing broad analytical surveys with country-specific case studies--most previously published in the Journal of Democracy and all written by prominent Africanists with...

For more than twenty years, the Journal of Democracy has been a leading voice in the conversation between scholars and practitioners about government by consent and its place in the contemporary world.

If democracy means anything, it means robust debates. Over the years, the pages of the Journal have certainly seen their share of lively and illuminating scholarly disagreements. As a service to students and teachers who wish to deepen their understanding of the questions and controversies that surround contemporary democratization, the Journal has now brought...

The rise of populism in new democracies, especially in Latin America, has brought renewed urgency to the question of how liberal democracy deals with issues of poverty and inequality. Citizens who feel that democracy failed to improve their economic condition are often vulnerable to the appeal of political leaders with authoritarian tendencies. To counteract this trend, liberal democracies must establish policies that will reduce socioeconomic disparities without violating liberal principles, interfering with economic growth, or ignoring the consensus of the people.

Poverty,...

For almost a decade, Freedom House's annual survey has highlighted a decline in democracy in most regions of the globe. While some analysts draw upon this evidence to argue that the world has entered a -democratic recession, - others dispute that interpretation, emphasizing instead democracy's success in maintaining the huge gains it made during the last quarter of the twentieth century.

Discussion of this question has moved beyond disputes about how many countries should be classified as democratic to embrace a host of wider concerns about the health of democracy: the poor economic...