Pub Date : 2024-01-01DOI: 10.1353/jod.2024.a915353
Diego A. Zambrano, Ludmilla Martins da Silva, Rolando Garcia Miron, Santiago P. Rodríguez
Abstract: Ten years of debates over democratic backsliding have failed to produce many examples of independent institutions thwarting authoritarian attempts on democracy. Yet Latin American courts seem to be countering this larger trend. The three largest countries in the region—Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia—have produced robust institutions able to check leaders with authoritarian tendencies, with high courts playing a fundamental role. In a dramatic succession of recent cases, courts in these three countries have been innovative, acted with a high degree of independence, and appear legitimately interested in defending democratic norms. All of this is profoundly surprising. There is little to no track record of independent Latin American judiciaries that stand in the way of authoritarian governments. Closer study of these three countries is therefore critical for scholars and practitioners, who are otherwise locked in debates over the importance of judicial review in preserving democracy. After dozens of judicial reform failures since the 1990s, we may be observing some overdue success. It appears that 1990s judicial reforms are making a comeback in Latin America.
{"title":"How Latin America's Judges are Defending Democracy","authors":"Diego A. Zambrano, Ludmilla Martins da Silva, Rolando Garcia Miron, Santiago P. Rodríguez","doi":"10.1353/jod.2024.a915353","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2024.a915353","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Ten years of debates over democratic backsliding have failed to produce many examples of independent institutions thwarting authoritarian attempts on democracy. Yet Latin American courts seem to be countering this larger trend. The three largest countries in the region—Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia—have produced robust institutions able to check leaders with authoritarian tendencies, with high courts playing a fundamental role. In a dramatic succession of recent cases, courts in these three countries have been innovative, acted with a high degree of independence, and appear legitimately interested in defending democratic norms. All of this is profoundly surprising. There is little to no track record of independent Latin American judiciaries that stand in the way of authoritarian governments. Closer study of these three countries is therefore critical for scholars and practitioners, who are otherwise locked in debates over the importance of judicial review in preserving democracy. After dozens of judicial reform failures since the 1990s, we may be observing some overdue success. It appears that 1990s judicial reforms are making a comeback in Latin America.","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139128887","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-01DOI: 10.1353/jod.2024.a915357
{"title":"Documents on Democracy","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/jod.2024.a915357","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2024.a915357","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139127647","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-01DOI: 10.1353/jod.2024.a915352
Christopher Davidson
Abstract: The UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar have recently been linked to a range of contentious exploits in the West. These include covert influence operations, espionage, and (in Saudi Arabia's case) even acts of political violence. At first glance, such adversarial activity makes little sense, given longstanding economic, security, and 'soft power' ties. As this essay demonstrates, however, a potent mix of shared and state-specific motives has been steering these increasingly assertive monarchies—themselves experiencing intensive autocratization—into uncharted waters. Amidst serious divergences with the US, the European Union and other such partners, this has pitched Gulf-Western relations into a complex and unpredictable new era, with clear diplomatic and national-security ramifications as well as a pressing need for strengthened democratic defenses.
{"title":"Gulf States and Sharp Power: Allies to Adversaries","authors":"Christopher Davidson","doi":"10.1353/jod.2024.a915352","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2024.a915352","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: The UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar have recently been linked to a range of contentious exploits in the West. These include covert influence operations, espionage, and (in Saudi Arabia's case) even acts of political violence. At first glance, such adversarial activity makes little sense, given longstanding economic, security, and 'soft power' ties. As this essay demonstrates, however, a potent mix of shared and state-specific motives has been steering these increasingly assertive monarchies—themselves experiencing intensive autocratization—into uncharted waters. Amidst serious divergences with the US, the European Union and other such partners, this has pitched Gulf-Western relations into a complex and unpredictable new era, with clear diplomatic and national-security ramifications as well as a pressing need for strengthened democratic defenses.","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139126197","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-01DOI: 10.1353/jod.2024.a915356
Christian Caryl
{"title":"Portrait of an iPhone Statesman","authors":"Christian Caryl","doi":"10.1353/jod.2024.a915356","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2024.a915356","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139129835","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-01DOI: 10.1353/jod.2024.a915347
Ayesha T. Jalal
Abstract: Pakistan marked a watershed in its history on 9 May 2023 with the arrest of former prime minister Imran Khan, sparking nationwide protests and attacks on state institutions. These events, culminating in Khan's incarceration and a ban from public office, have intensified questions about the future of democracy in Pakistan. Political uncertainties are hardly new in in the country, but the coming together of economic crisis, political strife, and climatic disasters such as drought have sharpened age-old concerns about the country's stability. The chances of a genuine democratic dispensation emerging anytime soon can be ruled out, but if the key institutional stakeholders undertake to work with politicians instead of using, exploiting, and defaming them, Pakistan may well succeed in regaining lost ground and return to at least a semblance of normalcy.
{"title":"Does Democracy Have a Future in Pakistan?","authors":"Ayesha T. Jalal","doi":"10.1353/jod.2024.a915347","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2024.a915347","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Pakistan marked a watershed in its history on 9 May 2023 with the arrest of former prime minister Imran Khan, sparking nationwide protests and attacks on state institutions. These events, culminating in Khan's incarceration and a ban from public office, have intensified questions about the future of democracy in Pakistan. Political uncertainties are hardly new in in the country, but the coming together of economic crisis, political strife, and climatic disasters such as drought have sharpened age-old concerns about the country's stability. The chances of a genuine democratic dispensation emerging anytime soon can be ruled out, but if the key institutional stakeholders undertake to work with politicians instead of using, exploiting, and defaming them, Pakistan may well succeed in regaining lost ground and return to at least a semblance of normalcy.","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139126948","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-01DOI: 10.1353/jod.2024.a915346
Rahul Mukherji
Abstract: Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014, the India's democracy has flagged. Modi's government has been squeezing civic space, attacking the press, political opponents, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and stoking ethnic tensions. The state has also used an array of laws to harass critics of the regime. Yet there is still a chance that the power of the vote will lead to a democratic revival. A regime is most vulnerable at an intermediate level of repression: where the state is undermining the rule of law to an extent that is significantly harmful to the political opposition and civil society, but the electoral door to democratic revival has not yet closed completely. This is precisely where India is today. The most promising avenue of democratic resistance is at the subnational level.
{"title":"How to Stop India's Authoritatarian Slide","authors":"Rahul Mukherji","doi":"10.1353/jod.2024.a915346","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2024.a915346","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014, the India's democracy has flagged. Modi's government has been squeezing civic space, attacking the press, political opponents, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and stoking ethnic tensions. The state has also used an array of laws to harass critics of the regime. Yet there is still a chance that the power of the vote will lead to a democratic revival. A regime is most vulnerable at an intermediate level of repression: where the state is undermining the rule of law to an extent that is significantly harmful to the political opposition and civil society, but the electoral door to democratic revival has not yet closed completely. This is precisely where India is today. The most promising avenue of democratic resistance is at the subnational level.","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139128954","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-01DOI: 10.1353/jod.2024.a915355
Danielle Allen, E. G. Weyl
Abstract: As perhaps the most consequential technology of our time, Generative Foundation Models (GFMs) present unprecedented challenges for democratic institutions. By allowing deception and de-contextualized information sharing at a previously unimaginable scale and pace, GFMs could undermine the foundations of democracy. At the same time, the investment scale required to develop the models and the race dynamics around that development threaten to enable concentrations of democratically unaccountable power (both public and private). This essay examines the twin threats of collapse and singularity occasioned by the rise of GFMs.
{"title":"The Real Dangers of Generative AI","authors":"Danielle Allen, E. G. Weyl","doi":"10.1353/jod.2024.a915355","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2024.a915355","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: As perhaps the most consequential technology of our time, Generative Foundation Models (GFMs) present unprecedented challenges for democratic institutions. By allowing deception and de-contextualized information sharing at a previously unimaginable scale and pace, GFMs could undermine the foundations of democracy. At the same time, the investment scale required to develop the models and the race dynamics around that development threaten to enable concentrations of democratically unaccountable power (both public and private). This essay examines the twin threats of collapse and singularity occasioned by the rise of GFMs.","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139129837","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-01DOI: 10.1353/jod.2024.a915351
Hesham Sallam
Abstract: A decade has passed since General Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi assumed the Egyptian presidency. His reign has been marked by autocratic trial-and-error governance and the prioritization of personal desires and instincts over the needs of the Egyptian people. Sisi's focus on state-led infrastructure projects, such as the building of new cities and a new Suez Canal, initially stimulated economic growth but masked underlying economic weaknesses. His military-centered economic strategy expanded the military's role in the economy, leading to a precarious autocracy heavily reliant on coercion and external support. Sisi's economic policies, marked by heavy borrowing and austerity measures, have disproportionately impacted low- and middle-class citizens, leading to rising poverty and social discontent. Despite attempts at economic reform, Sisi's governance remains characterized by personalist rule, resistance to formal institutions, and a reliance on repression to suppress dissent, leaving Egypt in a precarious economic and political state.
{"title":"The Autocrat-in-Training: The Sisi Regime at 10","authors":"Hesham Sallam","doi":"10.1353/jod.2024.a915351","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2024.a915351","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: A decade has passed since General Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi assumed the Egyptian presidency. His reign has been marked by autocratic trial-and-error governance and the prioritization of personal desires and instincts over the needs of the Egyptian people. Sisi's focus on state-led infrastructure projects, such as the building of new cities and a new Suez Canal, initially stimulated economic growth but masked underlying economic weaknesses. His military-centered economic strategy expanded the military's role in the economy, leading to a precarious autocracy heavily reliant on coercion and external support. Sisi's economic policies, marked by heavy borrowing and austerity measures, have disproportionately impacted low- and middle-class citizens, leading to rising poverty and social discontent. Despite attempts at economic reform, Sisi's governance remains characterized by personalist rule, resistance to formal institutions, and a reliance on repression to suppress dissent, leaving Egypt in a precarious economic and political state.","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139125456","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-01DOI: 10.1353/jod.2024.a915349
Phillip Ayoub, Kristina Stoeckl
Abstract: This essay explores the troubling global pattern of illiberal governments weaponizing the issue of LGBTIQ rights. We argue that the fluidity of sexual orientation and gender identity makes LGBTIQ people susceptible targets for antidemocratic forces, allowing autocratic and illiberal regimes to contrast these identities with the perceived stability of tradition, national sovereignty, and conventional notions of "nature." Political homo- and transphobia are used by illiberal governments as tools to mobilize constituencies by framing LGBTIQ rights as incompatible with traditional values. Based on interviews and observations of participants at international forums, we also chart the global movement opposing LGBTIQ rights and explain how it undermines liberal democracy and threatens human-rights egalitarianism, weakens international institutions, and weaponizes democratic pluralism in divisive culture wars. The essay calls for a nuanced understanding of the complex interplay between illiberalism, homo- and transphobia, and the challenge posed to the foundational values of liberal democracies. We also offer ideas for how actors in liberal democracies can respond to and defend LGBTIQ rights effectively.
{"title":"The Global Resistance to LGBTIQ Rights","authors":"Phillip Ayoub, Kristina Stoeckl","doi":"10.1353/jod.2024.a915349","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2024.a915349","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: This essay explores the troubling global pattern of illiberal governments weaponizing the issue of LGBTIQ rights. We argue that the fluidity of sexual orientation and gender identity makes LGBTIQ people susceptible targets for antidemocratic forces, allowing autocratic and illiberal regimes to contrast these identities with the perceived stability of tradition, national sovereignty, and conventional notions of \"nature.\" Political homo- and transphobia are used by illiberal governments as tools to mobilize constituencies by framing LGBTIQ rights as incompatible with traditional values. Based on interviews and observations of participants at international forums, we also chart the global movement opposing LGBTIQ rights and explain how it undermines liberal democracy and threatens human-rights egalitarianism, weakens international institutions, and weaponizes democratic pluralism in divisive culture wars. The essay calls for a nuanced understanding of the complex interplay between illiberalism, homo- and transphobia, and the challenge posed to the foundational values of liberal democracies. We also offer ideas for how actors in liberal democracies can respond to and defend LGBTIQ rights effectively.","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139126389","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-01DOI: 10.1353/jod.2024.a915354
Omar G Encarnación
Abstract: A central paradox in the relationship between separatism and democracy is that while democracy provides a fertile environment for separatism—often by means of democracy's own institutions, mechanisms, and policies—democratic states are also well equipped to thwart and defeat separatist movements. The same pluralistic flexibility that allows pro-independence movements to blossom provides the tools to subvert and even crush separatist aspirations. Whether stonewalled by constitutional constraints, locked into systems of regional autonomy, undercut by counter-separatist movements, or cowed by the economic consequences of going it alone, separatist movements in democratic states are likely to turn quixotic. Catalonia and Scotland—two regions that only a few years ago seemed to be on the cusp of realizing longtime dreams of independence—prominently display the paradoxical politics inherent in separatism in democratic systems.
{"title":"Why Separatism Is No Match for Democracy","authors":"Omar G Encarnación","doi":"10.1353/jod.2024.a915354","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2024.a915354","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: A central paradox in the relationship between separatism and democracy is that while democracy provides a fertile environment for separatism—often by means of democracy's own institutions, mechanisms, and policies—democratic states are also well equipped to thwart and defeat separatist movements. The same pluralistic flexibility that allows pro-independence movements to blossom provides the tools to subvert and even crush separatist aspirations. Whether stonewalled by constitutional constraints, locked into systems of regional autonomy, undercut by counter-separatist movements, or cowed by the economic consequences of going it alone, separatist movements in democratic states are likely to turn quixotic. Catalonia and Scotland—two regions that only a few years ago seemed to be on the cusp of realizing longtime dreams of independence—prominently display the paradoxical politics inherent in separatism in democratic systems.","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139126913","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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