This paper develops a case study of Alianza Cfvica in Mexico to investigate the reach and limits of civil society organizations as advocates for electoral accountability in democratizing societies. Alianza Cfvica is a nonpartisan Mexican civic network that formed to conduct a massive citizen...

Much social entrepreneurship has occurred in countries with national governments with low levels of state capacity to address social problems. Yet, little or no social change originating resulting from social entrepreneurship could have become “large-scale” without the enabling institutions,...

This paper explores the hypothesis of a positive relationship between economic and political development that has been found in some developed countries. I argue that this relationship is debatable when talking about countries with significant levels of poverty and in which democratic...

In the last fifty years, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) incrementally transformed human rights in Europe. The effects and role of states in this transformation is oft debated, problematizing the degree to which national sovereignty is unwillingly diminished or conversely the...

Why has democracy failed to take root in Russia? In the waning years of the Soviet Union and in the beginning of the 1990s, Russia experienced a dramatic political opening. Since the second half of the 1990s, however, Russia has experienced one of the world's most striking returns to...

Recent debates concerning the reinvigoration of civic engagement and civics education have often looked to the American founding era to support the idea that civic virtue is necessary for the maintenance of a healthy, liberal democracy. Modern debates, however, often fail to consider the degree...