Democracy

Anxieties of Democracy

Democracy no longer has rivals, but its fairness and effectiveness face skepticism.

Preserving the Self

The Political Economy of Attention

The Contradiction of Nuclear Democracy

To be a nuclear-armed state is to invest the executive with dictatorial powers over immeasurable destructive capacity.

Fighting Inequality in the New Gilded Age

Restoring genuine democracy must go beyond campaign finance.

Trench Democracy in Schools #3: An Interview with Principal Vanessa Gray

Participatory Innovation in Unlikely Places.

The Neoliberal Bailout

Sure, the system worked—we avoided another Great Depression. But it worked much better for some than for others. 

The Only Government I Know

How the Criminal Justice System Degrades Democratic Citizenship

What Does the McCutcheon Decision Say about Democracy?

Our civics has encouraged us to think of voting as special. Roberts’s opinion suggests we have misled ourselves.

Is Get-Out-the-Vote Bad for Democracy?

How efforts to increase voter turnout exacerbate inequality.

Trench Democracy in Criminal Justice #2: An Interview with William DiMascio

Participatory Innovation in Unlikely Places.

Saving Privacy

Framing surveillance as a tradeoff between privacy and security is a dead end for democracy.

Democracy in South Africa

After twenty years of electoral dominance by the African National Congress, are South African politics finally becoming competitive?

When Money Shrinks Democracy

We are moving into an era where the direct influence of money on politics breaches new ground.

Trench Democracy in Public Administration #2: Interview with Andrea Arnold

Decatur, Georgia: a town where citizen participation plays a significant role in the daily life of government.

Trench Democracy in Schools #2: An Interview with Helen Beattie

Deepening student engagement through collaborative action.

Transparency Is Not the Government’s Responsibility

The problem is that it is not anybody else’s responsibility, either.

Trench Democracy in Public Administration: an Interview with Kimball Payne

Study circles for race and racism in Lynchburg.

What Killed Egyptian Democracy?

The promise of democracy lies in its potential to cultivate political virtue over time. But Egypt’s liberals, unnerved by the policies of the legitimate Muslim Brotherhood government, refused to wait.

From Democrats to Terrorists

The notion that elimination of the Muslim Brotherhood would produce a liberal democratic order was wishful thinking.

Trench Democracy in Criminal Justice: an Interview with Lauren Abramson

Participatory Innovation in Unlikely Places.

Crying Wolf: Democracies in Crisis

An interview with David Runciman

Trench Democracy in Schools: an Interview with Principal Donnan Stoicovy

Part of our series on participatory innovation in unlikely places.

Defrosting the Cold War with Iran

What will it take to revive U.S.-Iran relations?

Raúl’s Cuba

Raúl is not the same as his brother, but the democratic movement that Cuba needs still is not coming any time soon.

Get our newsletter

Vital reading on politics, ideas, and culture to your inbox


A political and literary forum, independent and nonprofit since 1975

Registered 501(c)(3) organization