Why Democracies Fail

Articles in Periodicals and Journals

Afghanistan

• “The U.S. couldn’t build Afghanistan a democracy. That rarely works” (August 31, 2021), op-ed article in The Washington Post by Jacqueline L. Hazelton, Associate Professor of Strategy and Policy, U.S. Naval War College.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/08/31/us-couldnt-build-afghanistan-democracy-that-rarely-works/

Democracy Challenged

• “The Dilemma of Democratization in Fragile States” by Pauline H. Baker, United Nations’ UN Chronicle. https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/dilemma-democratization-fragile-states
• “Why Democracies Collapse: The Reasons for Democratic Failure and Success” (2005) Abraham Diskin, Hanna Diskin and Reuven Y. Hazan, International Political Science Review, Vol 26, No. 3, 291–309. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0192512105053787
• “Biden’s Democracy Agenda Just Died an Ugly Death in Kabul” (August 17, 2021), article in Foreign Policy by Elise Labott, journalist and adjunct professor at American University’s School of International Service. https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/08/17/afghanistan-withdrawal-biden-democracy-agenda-human-rights-evacuation/
• “Is Democracy a Failure?” (March 14, 1861) editorial in The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1861/03/14/archives/is-democracy-a-failure.html
• “U.S. listed as a ‘backsliding’ democracy for first time in report by European think tank,” by Miriam Berger, The Washington Post (November 22, 2021),  https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/11/22/united-states-backsliding-democracies-list-first-time/
• “Democracy Index 2021: the China Challenge,” Economist Intelligence Unit, https://www.eiu.com/n/campaigns/democracy-index-2021/?utm_source=economist&utm_medium=daily_chart&utm_campaign=democracy-index-2021

International

• “Latin Americans Are Souring on Democracy. That’s Not So Surprising Considering the Region’s History” (August 27, 2019) by Marie Arana, Time. https://time.com/5662653/democracy-history-latin-america/
• “Is There a Crisis of Democracy in Europe?” (June 2020) by Hanspeter Kriesi, German Political Science Quarterly. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11615-020-00231-9
• “The Global Crisis of Democracy: as China and Russia attack free governments and push strongman rule, the U.S. has gone silent—and a new tide of authoritarianism is gathering” (May 17, 2019) by Larry Diamond, The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-global-crisis-of-democracy-11558105463
• “Why Democracy Didn’t Work in Russia” (October 27, 2017) article in The New Republic by Christian Caryl, former Moscow bureau chief for S. News & World Report. https://newrepublic.com/article/145446/democracy-didnt-work-russia-masha-gessen-book-traces-rise-repressive-nationalism
• “Threats to democracy in Africa: The rise of the constitutional coup” (2021), by John Mukum Mbaku, Brookings Institution publication. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2020/10/30/threats-to-democracy-in-africa-the-rise-of-the-constitutional-coup/
• “Russia’s Road to Autocracy” (October 2021), by Michael McFaul, Journal of Democracy, https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/russias-road-to-autocracy/

Pandemic

• “Global democracy has a very bad year: the pandemic caused an unprecedented rollback of democratic freedoms in 2020” (February 2, 2021) in The Economist. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/02/02/global-democracy-has-a-very-bad-year

Technology

• “Let’s Teach Computer Science Majors to Be Good Citizens. The Whole World Depends on It. (2021) by Anne-Marie Núñez, Matthew J. Mayhew, Musbah Shaheenand Laura S. Dahl https://www.edsurge.com/news/2021-03-15-let-s-teach-computer-science-majors-to-be-good-citizens-the-whole-world-depends-on-it

Selected Books

Democracy Challenged

• How Democracy Ends (2018) by David Runciman, Professor of Politics, University of Cambridge
• The People Versus Democracy: Why Our Freedom is In Danger & How to Save It (2018) by Yascha Mounk, writer for Foreign Affairs and The Atlantic, and Associate Professor of Practice at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.
• How Democracies Die (2018) by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, political scientists at Harvard University.

History of Democracy

• Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny (2018) by Edward J. Watts, Professor of History, University of California, San Diego

International

• The Failure of the Arab Spring (2016) by Khalifa A. Alfadhel, Assistant Professor of International Law at the University of Bahrain.
• Into The Hands of The Soldiers: Freedom and Chaos in Egypt and The Middle East (2019) by David Kirkpatrick, reporter for The New York Times.

Political Systems

• The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies (2016) by Ryszard Legutko, politician in Poland and Professor of Political Science at Jagiellonian University in Kraków.