In contemporary democracies, backsliding typically occurs through legal machinations. Self-enforcing democracy requires that political parties refrain from exploiting legal opportunities to tilt elec...

Endogenous Colonial Borders: Precolonial States and Geography in the Partition of Africa - Volume 119 Issue 1

In this pathbreaking empirical study, Lee and Paine illuminate the complex ways in which colonialism shaped the prospects for democracy in countries emerging from imperial rule.

One factor matters most, and it could be a problem in Syria.