About Democracy Lab

When World War II came to an end, there were only a dozen or so electoral democracies in the world. Today there are well over 100. Many of the current members of the club joined within the last quarter-century — a group whose members range from tiny Estonia to enormous Indonesia. The aftermath of the Arab Spring, the cautious opening of Burma, and the tensions between reformers and autocrats in places ranging from Thailand to Turkey are all part of the story that Foreign Policy‘s Democracy Lab aims to track.

A partnership between Foreign Policy magazine and the Legatum Institute, Democracy Lab is a unique journalistic effort to cover the political and economic challenges facing countries that are striving to make the transition from authoritarianism to democracy. It’s a story that can only be told through a genuinely global prism, incorporating voices from many nations. At the heart of this effort stands our Transitions blog, a collective report from countries all along the spectrum of change, with regular contributions from reporters around the world.

The channel also features profiles of key political and economic decision-makers in transitional societies, reform case studies, and expert interviews. Democracy Lab Editor Christian Caryl, who has covered many stories of political upheaval during his career as a foreign correspondent for Newsweek and other publications, writes each week about the issues that don’t always make it into the news headlines.

Democracy Lab strives to give the complexity of the subject its due by tackling it from myriad angles. Our coverage examines the struggles of dissidents and economic reformers, the push for free elections, and the fight against corruption. Our authors road-test technologies for circumventing dictators and fomenting beneficial social change. We explore theories and realities of revolution, the complexities of political participation, and the life and death of the middle class. While many of our contributors undoubtedly favor democracy to despotism, Democracy Lab has no particular political agenda. Our reporting comes from a range of countries, opinions, and disciplines. We eschew grand abstractions and scholasticism in favor of the practical and concrete.

The story that Democracy Lab follows is one of considerable drama. Yet it’s also a tale that has many possible endings. The triumph of democracy can never be taken as a given.

You can follow our work on Twitter and Facebook and sign up for our RSS feed. You can also subscribe to the Democracy Lab Weekly Brief, where we’ll update you by email on the best of the week’s coverage.

About the Partners:

Foreign Policy is the premier, award-winning magazine of global politics, economics, and ideas.

The Legatum Institute is a charitable public policy think-tank whose mission is to help people lead more prosperous lives. The Institute defines prosperity as wellbeing, not just wealth. Its Legatum Prosperity Index assesses a wide range of indicators including education, health, social capital, entrepreneurship and personal freedom to rank 142 countries. Published annually, the Index has become an essential tool for governments around the world.

About the Editors:

Christian Caryl is a senior fellow of the Legatum Institute and a contributing editor at Foreign Policy. He has reported from some 50 countries in the course of his career as a foreign correspondent, including stints as a Newsweek bureau chief in Moscow and Tokyo and covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ilya Lozovsky is assistant editor of Democracy Lab. Prior to joining Foreign Policy, he worked as Program Officer for Eurasia at Freedom House, providing emergency support to human rights activists and organizations across that continent. He has written for CNN’s Global Public Square and has translated and edited articles by Russian journalists for The New Republic. Ilya holds an MA in political development from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.