OOIR: Observatory of International Research

Papers

(The TQCC of Democratization is 4. The table below lists those papers that are above that threshold based on CrossRef citation counts [max. 250 papers]. The publications cover those that have been published in the past four years, i.e., from 2022-01-01 to 2026-01-01.)

Article	Citations
Dictatorship and information: authoritarian regime resilience in communist Europe and China	110
The authoritarian international. Tracing how authoritarian regimes learn in the post-soviet space	74
The two genotypes of secession. Explaining non-nationalist independence claims in federal-authoritarian regimes	65
Power and progress: our thousand-year struggle over technology and prosperity	46
The European Parliament’s democracy promotion activities in the face of autocratization in South America: the cases of Bolivia and Venezuela	44
Democracy promotion in times of autocratization: a conceptual note	38
Political voice: protest, democracy, and marginalised groups	25
Shade-grown authoritarianism? Revisiting coffee as a curse in Latin America and the Caribbean	25
Who tolerates democratic backsliding? A mosaic approach to voters’ responses to authoritarian leadership in Hungary	22
Delegative democratic attitude and public opinion on human rights: empirical evidence from the Philippines	22
Digital authoritarianism in the Middle East: deception, disinformation and social media Digital authoritarianism in the Middle East: deception, disinformation and social media	21
A tale of two cities: spillover effects of electoral shocks in non-democratic regimes	21
Formal power in informal networks. Distribution of power resources in personalized bureaucracies: the case of Russia’s subnational elites	20
How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs: The Syrian Congress of 1920 and the Destruction of its Liberal-Islamic Alliance	19
The king’s speeches: environmental sustainability as a discursive legitimation project in autocracies. Evidence from Morocco.	18
Polarization, fragmentation, and democratic deconsolidation in interwar Europe	17
Weak agency and preferences for participatory democracy: discourses of Spanish people in positions of socioeconomic disadvantage	16
New perspectives on international party assistance	15
Patterns of incumbents’ repression during autocratization	15
Inching toward democratization? Comparing Cuba’s National Assembly elections, 2018 and 2023	15
Legislating Islam: Islamists’ and Salafis’ Distinct paths of moderation in the Kuwaiti parliament	14
Brilliant tragedy? Electoral effects of environmental protest cycle in autocracy	14
Soldiers of democracy? Military legacies and the Arab Spring	14
The spirit of populism: sacred, charismatic, redemptive, and apocalyptic dimensions	12
Local power play: the post-election repression and local governance	12

Ramping up control: how judicial harassment and online smear campaigns work in tandem to limit dissent in Thailand	12
Casting a new light on the democratic spectator	12
Radical movement-parties, political change and the epistemology of elections: evidence from Lebanon	12
What is a “regime”? Three definitions and their implications for the future of regime studies	11
Transnational repression in the age of globalization	11
Dark politics	10
Looking beyond democratic backsliding: analysing the political economy context of Turkey’s regime trajectory through a mode of participation approach	10
Routledge handbook of EU-Middle East relations	10
Shock to the system: Coups, elections, and war on the road to democratization	10
Beyond Presidentialism and Parliamentarism: Democratic Design and the Separation of Powers	10
Geopolitics and democracy: the Western liberal order from foundation to fracture	9
“Politics unusual”? Bobi Wine, People Power, and the ideology of popular opposition in Uganda	9
When elites concede: state capacity and the management of protest in Mexico	9
Democracy and Nationalism in Southeast Asia. From secessionist mobilization to conflict resolution	9
Resistance to populism	9
Wealth, power, and authoritarian institutions: comparing dominant parties and parliaments in Tanzania and Uganda	9
Mnemonic politics among Philippine voters: a social media measurement approach	9
A people power philosophy: republican ideology in opposition in Tanzania	9
Not Islamists, Muslim democrats: Tunisian Ennahda ’s path of ideological moderation (2011–2018)	8
Fading freedoms: democratic decline in Albania	8
The Druze vote in Israel: between ideology, socioeconomic status, kinship, and the Nation-State Basic Law	8
The relationship between affective polarization and democratic backsliding: comparative evidence	8
When autocratization is reversed: episodes of U-Turns since 1900	8
How security shaped Libya’s transition	8
Tanzania under Magufuli: the personalization of a party-based regime	8
Political trust and attitudes toward civil disobedience: evidence from Taiwan	8
Gaming democracy: how Silicon Valley leveled up the far right	8
Public broadcasting and democracy’s defense: responses to far-right parties in Germany and Sweden	8
On motives and means: how approach and justification for court-curbing impact public trust	8
Academic freedom and the onset of autocratization	8
Revolution and dictatorship. The violent origins of durable authoritarianism	7
The effect of electoral politics on the distribution of public spending in the context of democratic transition: evidence from Tunisia	7
Where do social media and education meet? A closer look at understanding of democracy	7
Democratization, state capacity and developmental correlates of international artificial intelligence trade	7
Explaining judges’ opposition when judicial independence is undermined: insights from Poland, Romania, and Hungary	7
Political plasticity: the future of democracy and dictatorship	7
Christian nationalism and democracy in Ghana	7
The COVID-19 pandemic and popular confidence in democracy: evidence from China, Japan, and South Korea	7
Information, doubt, and democracy: how digitization spurs democratic decay	7
Explaining the failure of legislative agency in patronal divided executives: deputy meaning making and its impact on legislative quality in Kyrgyzstan 2010–2020	6
The mechanisms of personalization	6
Trust under threat: challenges in a digital society	6
Enchanted Revolution: Ghosts, Shamans, and Gender Politics in Chinese Communist Propaganda, 1942–1953	6
Why is party-based autocracy more durable? Examining the role of elite institutions and mass organization	6
Who’s to blame for democratic backsliding: populists, presidents or dominant executives?	6
Gateway to dissent: the role of pro-Palestine activism in opposition to authoritarianism	6
Electoral Reform and Democracy in Malaysia	6
Democratic resilience in Europe – and its limits	6
Alternative patterns to electoral autocracy: recognizing diversity in contemporary autocratization processes	6
The geography of autocracy. Regime preferences along the rural-urban divide in 32 countries	6

Democracy rules	6
Coups, rivals, and the modern state: why rural coalitions matter in sub-Saharan Africa Coups, rivals, and the modern state: why rural coalitions matter in sub-Saharan Africa	6
Civil society’s democratic potential	6
Hailing the State: Indian Democracy Between Elections	6
Job insecurity, economic resources, and democratic backsliding: evidence from South Korea	6
Populism and civil–military relations	6
Declining Democracy in East-Central Europe: The Divide in the EU and Emerging Hard Populism; Awakening Europe in the Triple Global Crisis: The Birth Pangs of the Emerging Europe	5
Electoral integrity resilience: protecting elections during global risks, crises, and emergencies	5
Stalker states: Are democracies more likely to snoop on citizens’ data on Facebook?	5
Public attitudes toward external democracy promotion in Africa	5
Evaluating Europe's push to enact AI regulations: how will this influence global norms?	5
When reorganizing coercion backfires: explaining the mechanisms of revolt in Sudan and Algeria	5
Individual or collective rights? Consequences for the satisfaction with democracy among Indigenous peoples in Latin America	5
Changing the rules to win the game again: does presidential term-limit evasion affect measures of electoral integrity?	5
The political economy of digital authoritarianism: evidence from the Iranian regime’s implementation of technology	5
The conflict within: the politics of parliamentary election management in Iran	5
Competing demand-side explanations and populism: cross-national variation in a recursive ideational system	5
Activism in the era of democratic backsliding: explaining the efficacy of the clean-air campaigns in Poland	5
On the effectiveness of democracy aid in post-civil war recipient countries	5
Authoritarian collaboration and repression in the digital age: balancing foreign direct investment and control in internet infrastructure	5
State of the world 2022: defiance in the face of autocratization	5
Quietist Salafism and survival: pious politics in Morocco and Algeria	4
Protesting for autocracy: economic vulnerability and anti-democratic protest attendance in Tunisia	4
Patterns of democratic backsliding in third-wave democracies: a sequence analysis perspective	4
Sociology of corruption: patterns of illegal association in Hungary	4
Blood gambit: how autocratizing populists fuel ethnic conflict to reverse election setbacks – evidence from Turkey and Israel	4
Militarized elections and citizens’ support for democratic rights: evidence from India	4
Strategic responses to autocratization in international democracy promotion	4
Proportional representation and party fragmentation in electoral autocracies	4
What is democratic resilience?	4
The longer the worse? The case of populism, anti-pluralism, and constitutional compliance	4
Lobbying the autocrat: the dynamics of policy advocacy in nondemocracies	4
The Authoritarian Divide: populism, propaganda, and polarization	4
Mobilizing in Uncertainty: Collective Identities and War in Abkhazia	4
Coming out of the liberal closet. Think tanks and de-democratization in Poland	4
The modern manual of authoritarian leadership	4
Malaysia’s democratic deficit: why youth may not be the answer	4
Power and politics in Africa: a boundary generator	4
Pastoral power, clerical state. Pentecostalism, gender, and sexuality in Nigeria Pastoral power, clerical state. Pentecostalism, gender, and sexuality in Nigeria , by Eb	4
What do you call the political upheaval? The conceptual linkage between revolutions and coups	4
Is community service an act of political resistance? the “community pantry” phenomenon in the Philippines and voter behaviour	4
Political polarization in Korea	4
Transnational securitization and violence: the discursive mechanism behind the pro-AKP diaspora’s repression of the dissident diaspora groups in the West	4
Weak party system institutionalization and autocratization: evidence from Tunisia	4
Elite strategy in resilient authoritarianism: Equatorial Guinea, 1979–2023	4
What does the population in Niger think about a military government?	4
Do mutually reinforcing cleavages harm democracy? Inequalities between ethnic groups and autocratization	4
Legalizing control: the rise of restrictive internet regulation in sub-Saharan Africa	4
Challenging the rules of the game: clientelism and dissent in the Middle East	4