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1. The fall of Assad has opened a door. But can Syria seize the moment?

Author:
Qutaiba Idlibi, Charles Lister, and Marie Forestier
Publication Date:
06-2025
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
For more than a decade, Syria’s crisis has caused unimaginable suffering inside the country and a constant stream of strategically significant spillover effects across the Middle East and globally. However, this dynamic changed in late 2024, when armed opposition groups in Syria’s northwest launched a sudden and unprecedentedly sophisticated and disciplined offensive, capturing the city of Aleppo and triggering an implosion of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. In the space of ten days, Assad’s rule collapsed like a house of cards, dealing a crippling blow to Iran’s role in Syria and significantly weakening Russia’s influence. Now, for the first time in many years, Syria has a chance to recover and reintegrate into the international system. If the United States, Europe, Middle Eastern nations, and other stakeholders embrace the right approach, support the right policies, and encourage Syria’s transition to move in the appropriate direction, the world will benefit—and Syrians will find peace. The work of the Syria Strategy Project (SSP) and the policy recommendations in the report “Reimagining Syria: A roadmap for peace and prosperity beyond Assad” present a realistic and holistic vision for realizing that goal. This report is the result of intensive joint efforts by the Atlantic Council, the Middle East Institute (MEI), and the European Institute of Peace (EIP), which have been collaborating since March 2024 on the SSP. At its core, the project has involved a sustained process of engagement with subject-matter experts and policymakers in the United States, Europe, and across the Middle East to develop a realistic and holistic strategic vision for sustainably resolving Syria’s crisis. This process, held almost entirely behind closed doors, incorporated Syrian experts, civil society organizations, and other stakeholders at every step.
Topic:
Civil Society, Human Rights, Politics, Economy, Crisis Management, Bashar al-Assad, Freedom, and Democratic Transitions
Political Geography:
Middle East and Syria

2. From Tunis to Baghdad: Can platform-based politics take root?

Author:
Carrie Schenkel and James Storen
Publication Date:
02-2025
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
The organization of political parties has served multiple distinct roles in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). In many cases, regimes use them to create a light veneer of democratic legitimacy for authoritarianism; in other cases, parties exist to represent one identity group or are centered around a singular individual. In rare cases, but with a few successful examples, parties exist to represent an ideology. Rarer still, but key to the future democratic success of the region, are true platform-based parties. Vacuums of political leadership have developed due to the limited role parties play in shaping governance, representation, and public policy. In a rapidly changing region, the opportunity for effective, issues-based parties has never been more evident. Iran’s proxies in the region have been significantly weakened and the “Axis of Resistance” dismantled, presenting openings for new political leadership to emerge. Political parties are not yet poised to meet the moment. In much of the region, long histories of implicit and explicit bans and one-party dominance have left political parties weak, unpopular, and ineffective. Extended periods of suppression and restriction—such as Jordan’s thirty-year party ban, Iraq’s decades of one-party rule under Saddam Hussein, and Tunisia’s twenty-three years of party bans during the Ben Ali era—have resulted in political parties that lack both organizational capacity and broad public appeal. Rather, they are fragmented, ideologically vague, and centered around individuals rather than coherent platforms. The proliferation of political parties—more than 220 are currently registered in Tunisia, for example—has further undermined any sense of clear policy platforms and the ability to differentiate one party from another. Rather than reforming or uniting under existing frameworks, disillusioned members frequently break away to form new parties, stymieing coalition-building and the development of rooted, comprehensive party ideologies. Disillusionment with traditional parties has led citizens to favor actors perceived as more directly serving their interests, such as Hezbollah—which positions itself as a resistance force against Israel—or Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated parties, which have gained trust through their provision of essential social services in Egypt, Jordan, and elsewhere. In an era defined by youth-led movements, digital activism, and persistent calls for democratization, these parties stand at a crossroads. Whether they act as agents of change or instruments of entrenched power remains a central question, shaping not only the future of governance within individual nations but also the trajectory of regional stability and development.
Topic:
Civil Society, Corruption, Diplomacy, Politics, Elections, and Democratic Transitions
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, North Africa, and Lebanon

3. False promises: The authoritarian development models of China and Russia

Author:
Joseph Lemoine, Dan Negrea, Patrick Quirk, and Lauren Van Metre
Publication Date:
01-2024
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Are authoritarian regimes more successful than free countries in offering prosperity to their people? The answer is decidedly no, yet China and Russia actively advertise the “benefits” and “promise” of their authoritarian development model. Beijing and Moscow contend that their governance model—rooted in central control of political, social, and economic life—delivers for their people. The facts prove exactly the opposite and show that countries characterized by repression and concentrated control are far less successful across all metrics of human development than are free societies. That free societies are better for the people residing in them is not an ideological position; it is a statement of fact backed by substantial evidence, including, but not limited to, the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Indexes. This paper aims to showcase why and how the authoritarian development model is inferior to that of free societies. The first section documents democratic backsliding and the reversal of freedom’s fortunes. The second section presents data on how authoritarian regimes have failed to deliver prosperity for their people. The third section outlines how free societies have done the opposite—delivered sustained prosperity for their citizens. The final section offers the conclusion that authoritarian regimes, despite their claims, cannot deliver democratic progress or prosperity for society at large.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Development, Diplomacy, Politics, Authoritarianism, Reform, and Democratic Transitions
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Europe, and Asia

4. The missing piece: Political parties are critical to democracy in Africa

Author:
Santiago Stocker, Patrick Quirk, and Dan Scaduto
Publication Date:
06-2024
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
In 2024, as many as seventeen countries across Africa, with a total population of nearly 300 million people, will hold national elections. These electoral processes are consequential because whether they are free, fair, and transparent will help determine if the troubling trend in several countries across the continent of democratic regression, military coups, or political instability worsens—or ebbs and begins to reverse, as was recently demonstrated in Senegal. The stakes are clearly high in these contests, which will occur in the so-called year of elections wherein more than four billion people globally are eligible to cast ballots. While the elections are important to Africa’s democratic trajectory, they are not single-handedly determinative of it. Strong and institutionalized political parties are also key to the future of democracy on the continent; however, policymakers have not afforded this key institution much attention or associated resources. For example, the US’s national security strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa does not reference strengthening political parties despite the document’s emphasis on democracy promotion. Further, the Biden administration’s Summits for Democracy—the third of which took place in March 2024—have not included commitments from participating governments (the United States included) to strengthen political parties. Robust political parties inform whether a political system delivers for citizens, provide a key link between citizens and their government, and foster measurable resilience against democratic erosion. For these and other reasons, therefore, political parties as a core institution of democracy will help chart the continent’s future, both in terms of freedom and prosperity. This piece analyzes the state of political parties in sub-Saharan Africa and uses Atlantic Council Freedom and Prosperity Indexes data and other sources to show why parties are essential to democratic progress. It examines this argument through four case studies and concludes with a path forward for re-centering democracy assistance work in Africa to shore up this critical component.
Topic:
Elections, Political Parties, and Democratic Transitions
Political Geography:
Africa and East Africa

5. Unloved but indispensable: Political parties in Europe

Author:
Paul McCarthy, Thibault Muzergues, and Patrick Quirk
Publication Date:
08-2024
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
The rise of political parties in their modern form in Europe has historically been associated with the coming of age of mass politics, and the subsequent need for representation of sectional interests (in other words, the interests of specific social classes). Following the end of World War II in Western Europe, and the end of the Cold War in Central and Eastern Europe, political parties became a central component of European democracies. Scholars often describe the 1960s and 1970s as the golden age of (Western) European democratic parties. However, the honeymoon did not last beyond this period. A long decline has made political parties much less relevant to modern politics, as they were often replaced by personalized politics and the politicization of one-issue social movements throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Political parties today are generally unpopular and distrusted by the wider public. Yet what is remarkable is that despite their decline and a crisis that many had described as terminal, European parties have remained at the center of the game in most countries’ political systems. Perhaps even more importantly, they have proved indispensable for the functioning of democracy in Europe: in the Netherlands, despite an extremely atomized party system and a global rejection of parties, no agreement on a coalition government can be passed without negotiations among them. In Italy, the Five Star Movement soon understood that it needed to convert into a much more classical political party to implement its political program: it built more traditional structures and adopted a clear positioning on the very left-right divide that it had claimed to supersede a few years before. The experience of the past decade has shown that despite their unpopularity, political parties remain indispensable for the functioning of democracies in Europe—when they are present, plural, and organized, democracy is doing well. When they are not, or when the party system is unbalanced, democracies suffer and even backslide. To prove this assertion, this paper will look at four telling examples in recent European history, taking from the experiences of Romania, Spain, France, and Hungary.
Topic:
Politics, Reform, Elections, Political Parties, and Democratic Transitions
Political Geography:
Europe

6. The shift from party to personality politics is harming Latin American democracies

Author:
Christine Zaino and Sofia Herrera
Publication Date:
11-2024
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Across Latin America and the Caribbean, personality-driven political movements and political outsiders are increasingly prevalent, often at the expense of party-based politics. A theme of recent elections in the region has been a widespread embrace of political figures and movements vowing to upend the status quo. From Ecuador to Argentina to Guatemala, political outsiders have unseated the establishment. Meanwhile, recently formed, ideologically vague political movements in Mexico and El Salvador overtook the traditional parties that they broke away from to win landslide elections. With few exceptions, the region has failed to develop competitive, institutionalized, and programmatic parties. This breakdown in party systems and proliferation of personality-driven movements has not delivered better results. Improving institutionalized competition among programmatic, ideologically distinct, and identifiable parties would bolster Latin American democracy, delivering citizens freedom and prosperity. Within the past decade, several countries with once seemingly institutionalized party systems, such as El Salvador and Mexico, collapsed as parties lost their grip on power to personality-driven figures and movements. Others, like Ecuador and Guatemala, have systems that appear to provide a wide variety of options to citizens through a great proliferation of parties. These systems are unpredictable to citizens, and parties are unable to develop the structure, ideology, and institutionality necessary to deliver solutions to citizen’s needs. This piece examines how political parties across four Latin American countries in two types of systems have failed to serve as effective vehicles for delivering democracy, and what must change for parties in the region to succeed. We examine the breakdown of the formerly institutionalized party systems in Mexico and El Salvador, and the persistently weak parties in Guatemala and Ecuador. Each country’s experience illustrates how a lack of programmatic parties has contributed to poor governance, which fails to adequately deliver essential services to citizens, potentially undermining democracy and the freedom it should deliver. For each case, we reference data from the Atlantic Council Freedom and Prosperity Indexes and other sources to illustrate the critical role of parties in advancing democracy.
Topic:
Politics, Reform, Elections, and Democratic Transitions
Political Geography:
Latin America and Mexico

7. Even in authoritarian countries, democracy advocates are worth investing in

Author:
Fernanda Buril, Nate Grubman, and Patrick Quirk
Publication Date:
12-2024
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Freedom and democracy are in decline globally, according to the Atlantic Council’s Freedom Index. Political freedom in particular has slumped sharply since 2019, bringing the world to a twenty-four-year low. The biggest backsliders—the places with the sharpest declines in political freedom—span every major geographic region and many are particularly relevant to US national security. There are several fundamental reasons for the United States to support strategies that aim to halt such backsliding and foster democratization, including ones that go beyond the moral obligation to support humanitarian values. For instance, research shows that democracies are less prone to enable and export transnational crime or terrorism, and democracies are better at adapting to adverse economic events and avoiding large-scale disasters, and are more reliable trading partners, offering better business opportunities by upholding the rule of law and protecting investments from the arbitrary predation of political elites. Most notably, the vast majority of people around the world continue to prefer to be governed democratically. Democracy support also strengthens the US position more broadly in the strategic contest against the autocratic rivals of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Robust democratic institutions—transparent judiciaries, capable legislatures, responsive political parties, an active civil society, and a free press—make it harder for the rulers in the autocratic bloc to co-opt elites in other countries and advance their malign agendas. But with the world experiencing a global democratic recession, questions arise as to whether supporting democracy is a losing battle. Despite the bleak recent data on global democratic progress, democracy assistance is still crucial, not only in countries undergoing political openings and democratic consolidation but also—and perhaps even more so—in countries that are backsliding. Case studies in the Middle East, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and sub-Saharan Africa suggest that using foreign assistance (in addition to and in concert with diplomacy and investment) to support democracy champions wherever they are is an effective strategy, even if the payoff is not immediately apparent at the level of a country’s political system.
Topic:
Authoritarianism, Elections, Democracy, Investment, and Democratic Transitions
Political Geography:
Caucasus, Latin America, Lebanon, and Sahel