OOIR: Observatory of International Research

Papers

(The TQCC of Democratization is 3. 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 2021-06-01 to 2025-06-01.)

Article	Citations
Dictatorship and information: authoritarian regime resilience in communist Europe and China	78
The authoritarian international. Tracing how authoritarian regimes learn in the post-soviet space	75
The European Parliament’s democracy promotion activities in the face of autocratization in South America: the cases of Bolivia and Venezuela	57
Power and progress: our thousand-year struggle over technology and prosperity	56
Delegative democratic attitude and public opinion on human rights: empirical evidence from the Philippines	51
Election meltdown: dirty tricks, distrust, and the threat to American democracy	47
A tale of two cities: spillover effects of electoral shocks in non-democratic regimes	34
Who tolerates democratic backsliding? A mosaic approach to voters’ responses to authoritarian leadership in Hungary	34
Digital authoritarianism in the Middle East: deception, disinformation and social media Digital authoritarianism in the Middle East: deception, disinformation and social media	31
Soldiers of democracy? Military legacies and the Arab Spring	30
Radical movement-parties, political change and the epistemology of elections: evidence from Lebanon	28
Casting a new light on the democratic spectator	24
What is a “regime”? Three definitions and their implications for the future of regime studies	23
Local power play: the post-election repression and local governance	20
New perspectives on international party assistance	20
Weak agency and preferences for participatory democracy: discourses of Spanish people in positions of socioeconomic disadvantage	20
Inching toward democratization? Comparing Cuba’s National Assembly elections, 2018 and 2023	19
Personalist ruling parties in democracies	18
Formal power in informal networks. Distribution of power resources in personalized bureaucracies: the case of Russia’s subnational elites	16
Brilliant tragedy? Electoral effects of environmental protest cycle in autocracy	16
Ramping up control: how judicial harassment and online smear campaigns work in tandem to limit dissent in Thailand	15
The spirit of populism: sacred, charismatic, redemptive, and apocalyptic dimensions	15
How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs: The Syrian Congress of 1920 and the Destruction of its Liberal-Islamic Alliance	15
Transnational repression in the age of globalization	13
After the Arab Uprisings. Progress and Stagnation in the Middle East	13

Dark politics	13
Shock to the system: Coups, elections, and war on the road to democratization	12
Beyond Presidentialism and Parliamentarism: Democratic Design and the Separation of Powers	11
Looking beyond democratic backsliding: analysing the political economy context of Turkey’s regime trajectory through a mode of participation approach	11
Mnemonic politics among Philippine voters: a social media measurement approach	11
Resistance to populism	11
Routledge handbook of EU-Middle East relations	10
When elites concede: state capacity and the management of protest in Mexico	10
“Politics unusual”? Bobi Wine, People Power, and the ideology of popular opposition in Uganda	10
Geopolitics and democracy: the Western liberal order from foundation to fracture	10
A people power philosophy: republican ideology in opposition in Tanzania	9
When autocratization is reversed: episodes of U-Turns since 1900	9
Democracy and Nationalism in Southeast Asia. From secessionist mobilization to conflict resolution	9
Gaming democracy: how Silicon Valley leveled up the far right	8
Tanzania under Magufuli: the personalization of a party-based regime	8
How electoral competition shapes local public goods provision in South Africa	8
Academic freedom and the onset of autocratization	8
Public broadcasting and democracy’s defense: responses to far-right parties in Germany and Sweden	8
Property without rights. Origins and consequences of the property rights gap	8
Authoritarian gravity centers a cross-regional study of authoritarian promotion and diffusion	8
Militant democracy and the pre-emptive constitution: from party bans to hardened term limits	8
Fading freedoms: democratic decline in Albania	8
How security shaped Libya’s transition	7
Why do some coups lead to democratization?	7
Revolution and dictatorship. The violent origins of durable authoritarianism	7
On motives and means: how approach and justification for court-curbing impact public trust	7
Job insecurity, economic resources, and democratic backsliding: evidence from South Korea	7
Why is party-based autocracy more durable? Examining the role of elite institutions and mass organization	7
The relationship between affective polarization and democratic backsliding: comparative evidence	7
The Druze vote in Israel: between ideology, socioeconomic status, kinship, and the Nation-State Basic Law	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	6
China’s influence and the center-periphery Tug of War in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Indo-Pacific China’s influence and the center-periphery Tug of War in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Indo-Pacific	6
Where do social media and education meet? A closer look at understanding of democracy	6
Political plasticity: the future of democracy and dictatorship	6
The COVID-19 pandemic and popular confidence in democracy: evidence from China, Japan, and South Korea	6
Who’s to blame for democratic backsliding: populists, presidents or dominant executives?	6
Political trust and attitudes toward civil disobedience: evidence from Taiwan	6
Alternative patterns to electoral autocracy: recognizing diversity in contemporary autocratization processes	6
Populism and civil–military relations	6
Conditionality & coercion: electoral clientelism in Eastern Europe	6
Information, doubt, and democracy: how digitization spurs democratic decay	5
Explaining the failure of legislative agency in patronal divided executives: deputy meaning making and its impact on legislative quality in Kyrgyzstan 2010–2020	5
The geography of autocracy. Regime preferences along the rural-urban divide in 32 countries	5
Gateway to dissent: the role of pro-Palestine activism in opposition to authoritarianism	5
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	5
Democracy rules	5
Authoritarian collaboration and repression in the digital age: balancing foreign direct investment and control in internet infrastructure	5
Opening up the notion of “closing space”: accounting for normative, actor, and political system diversity	5
Electoral Reform and Democracy in Malaysia	5

Hailing the State: Indian Democracy Between Elections	5
Enchanted Revolution: Ghosts, Shamans, and Gender Politics in Chinese Communist Propaganda, 1942–1953	5
Public attitudes toward external democracy promotion in Africa	5
The crisis of democracy? Chances, risks, and challenges in Japan (Asia) and Germany (Europe) The crisis of democracy? Chances, risks, and challenges in Japan (Asia) and Germany (Europe)	5
The mechanisms of personalization	5
The Authoritarian Divide: populism, propaganda, and polarization	4
Coming out of the liberal closet. Think tanks and de-democratization in Poland	4
Individual or collective rights? Consequences for the satisfaction with democracy among Indigenous peoples in Latin America	4
Unravelling democratic erosion: who drives the slow death of democracy, and how?	4
Evaluating Europe's push to enact AI regulations: how will this influence global norms?	4
When reorganizing coercion backfires: explaining the mechanisms of revolt in Sudan and Algeria	4
Is community service an act of political resistance? the “community pantry” phenomenon in the Philippines and voter behaviour	4
Sociology of corruption: patterns of illegal association in Hungary	4
What do you call the political upheaval? The conceptual linkage between revolutions and coups	4
Political polarization in Korea	4
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	4
Patterns of democratic backsliding in third-wave democracies: a sequence analysis perspective	4
The conflict within: the politics of parliamentary election management in Iran	4
The machinery of #techno-colonialism crafting “democracy.” A glimpse into digital sub-netizenship in Mexico	4
Activism in the era of democratic backsliding: explaining the efficacy of the clean-air campaigns in Poland	4
Autocracy & Resistance in the Internet Age	4
Stalker states: Are democracies more likely to snoop on citizens’ data on Facebook?	4
Transnational securitization and violence: the discursive mechanism behind the pro-AKP diaspora’s repression of the dissident diaspora groups in the West	4
Changing the rules to win the game again: does presidential term-limit evasion affect measures of electoral integrity?	4
State of the world 2022: defiance in the face of autocratization	4
Competing demand-side explanations and populism: cross-national variation in a recursive ideational system	4
On the effectiveness of democracy aid in post-civil war recipient countries	4
A poisonous cocktail: ethnic quotas, liberal voting rights and the democracy problem	3
Party proliferation and political contestation in Africa: Senegal in comparative perspective	3
Why do autocracies enfranchise their citizens abroad? A large-N event history analysis, 1990–2010	3
German political foundations’ democracy promotion in autocratizing Tanzania: opening spaces for civil society support and transnational learning	3
Online repression and tactical evasion: evidence from the 2020 Day of Anger protests in Egypt	3
Proportional representation and party fragmentation in electoral autocracies	3
Strategic responses to autocratization in international democracy promotion	3
Blood gambit: how autocratizing populists fuel ethnic conflict to reverse election setbacks – evidence from Turkey and Israel	3
Lobbying the autocrat: the dynamics of policy advocacy in nondemocracies	3
Legalizing control: the rise of restrictive internet regulation in sub-Saharan Africa	3
Do mutually reinforcing cleavages harm democracy? Inequalities between ethnic groups and autocratization	3
Authoritarian legislature, legitimacy strategy, and shadow economy	3
Correction	3
The personalization of government: concept and comparative analysis	3
Measuring and assessing subnational electoral democracy: a new dataset for the Americas and India	3
Ideological beasts or effective organizations? Do voters’ views of democracy affect their expectations of political parties?	3
Pastoral power, clerical state. Pentecostalism, gender, and sexuality in Nigeria Pastoral power, clerical state. Pentecostalism, gender, and sexuality in Nigeria , by Eb	3
Facing protests in Serbia: patterns of new competitive authoritarianism	3
The modern manual of authoritarian leadership	3
Challenging the rules of the game: clientelism and dissent in the Middle East	3
Techno-authoritarian imaginaries and the politics of resistance against facial recognition technology in the US and European Union*	3
Elections, legitimacy, and compliance in authoritarian regimes: evidence from the Arab world	3
Elite strategy in resilient authoritarianism: Equatorial Guinea, 1979–2023	3
Demographic structure and voting behaviour during democratization: evidence from Malaysia’s 2022 election	3
The Arab Winter: Democratic Consolidation, Civil War, and Radical Islamists	3
Waiting for Dignity: Legitimacy and Authority in Afghanistan	3
Power and politics in Africa: a boundary generator	3
The longer the worse? The case of populism, anti-pluralism, and constitutional compliance	3
What does the population in Niger think about a military government?	3
Protesting for autocracy: economic vulnerability and anti-democratic protest attendance in Tunisia	3
Weak party system institutionalization and autocratization: evidence from Tunisia	3
Resilience, conflict and areas of limited statehood in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria	3
Quietist Salafism and survival: pious politics in Morocco and Algeria	3
Militarized elections and citizens’ support for democratic rights: evidence from India	3