Author: Erica Frantz / Journal: The Washington Quarterly

Author:: Erica Frantz and Andrea Kendall-Taylor
Publication Date:: 03-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Washington Quarterly
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: Democracy has suffered eight straight years of global decline. This was the finding Freedom House issued in its 2014 report examining the state of global political rights and civil liberties. This downward slide in political freedom has been the longest continuous decline in political rights and civil liberties since the watch-dog organization began measuring these trends over 40 years ago.

Author:: Erica Frantz and Andre Kendall-Taylor
Publication Date:: 04-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Washington Quarterly
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: Because autocrats can rarely be voted out of power, most find themselves exiting office in far less conventional ways. Since the 1950s, the coup d'état—or the illegal seizure of power by the military—has been by far the most common. During the 1960s and '70s, for example, about half of all autocrats who lost power did so through a coup. But fast-forward to the 2010s, and a different picture is emerging. The chain of protests during the Arab Awakening, which toppled four of the world's longest-standing rulers—Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Muammar Qaddafi of Libya, and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen—led many political observers to rejoice in the masses' ability to unseat autocratic strongmen. But are these revolts evidence that autocrats are becoming increasingly vulnerable to the masses? Or are they short-term exceptions to a longer-standing rule of autocratic ouster?
Topic:: Foreign Policy
Political Geography:: Libya, Yemen, and Egypt

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