The democratic project on a global scale that seemed so promising and was pursued with so much vigor in the final quarter of the twentieth century is now in serious disarray, if not in ruins.

Democracy rests on a vision. And all visions require hope. But it is not clear whether there is any deep or inherent affinity between the politics of democracy and the politics of hope.

"To take part in demonstrations and hooliganism in the name of >politics," said Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, speaking to a group of college students in the city of Pat

During a televised interview with the London-based Middle East Broadcast Corporation, Yemeni president Ali Abd Allah Salih rationalized his plans for his son Ahmad’s succession by claiming that

The twentieth century saw a great advance of democracy: not at all even, of course; it was always a question of two steps forward, one step back. But the long-term trend is unmistakable.