Switzerland is the only country in Europe that practices direct democracy: citizens get to vote on important changes to the constitution, rather than leaving it up to the politicians and government.

Elections keep handing power to elites. Anand Gopal and Ben Burgis debate whether choosing officials by lottery, as ancient Athens did, would be an improvement on representative democracy.

The publics surveyed are largely skeptical that democracy in the U.S., at least in its current form, is a good example for other countries to follow. A median of four-in-ten across the 34 nations ...

Democracy is in crisis. Many people are losing confidence in political parties and parliaments and their ability to solve pressing social problems in the long term. Recent studies by the University of ...

Georgetown University’s Center on Faith and Justice hosted Harvard University political scientist Steven Levitsky for a conversation Nov. 14 about his new book, “Tyranny of the Minority,” and his ...

I want to begin with a story—a story I have repeated again and again. It is a classic anecdote, almost a textbook example. It ...

When I lived in China, a decade ago, I often saw propaganda billboards covered in words that supposedly expressed the country’s values: Patriotism. Harmony. Equality. And … Democracy. Indeed, China ...

Claims that democracy is in crisis are certainly not new, but recent history has given the claim a new urgency. Over the past decade or so, there has been no shortage of people expressing concern that ...

That is the stark warning of the first-ever flagship report from the Afrobarometer, the African survey organisation based in Accra, Ghana. Based on nationally representative surveys in 39 countries, ...