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 2021-05-01 to 2025-05-01.)

Article	Citations
Election meltdown: dirty tricks, distrust, and the threat to American democracy	72
Dictatorship and information: authoritarian regime resilience in communist Europe and China	70
Delegative democratic attitude and public opinion on human rights: empirical evidence from the Philippines	60
The authoritarian international. Tracing how authoritarian regimes learn in the post-soviet space	54
The European Parliament’s democracy promotion activities in the face of autocratization in South America: the cases of Bolivia and Venezuela	53
Power and progress: our thousand-year struggle over technology and prosperity	51
Who tolerates democratic backsliding? A mosaic approach to voters’ responses to authoritarian leadership in Hungary	45
A tale of two cities: spillover effects of electoral shocks in non-democratic regimes	32
Digital authoritarianism in the Middle East: deception, disinformation and social media Digital authoritarianism in the Middle East: deception, disinformation and social media	32
Formal power in informal networks. Distribution of power resources in personalized bureaucracies: the case of Russia’s subnational elites	29
Soldiers of democracy? Military legacies and the Arab Spring	28
How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs: The Syrian Congress of 1920 and the Destruction of its Liberal-Islamic Alliance	27
Ramping up control: how judicial harassment and online smear campaigns work in tandem to limit dissent in Thailand	21
Radical movement-parties, political change and the epistemology of elections: evidence from Lebanon	21
Casting a new light on the democratic spectator	20
The spirit of populism: sacred, charismatic, redemptive, and apocalyptic dimensions	18
Local power play: the post-election repression and local governance	18
What is a “regime”? Three definitions and their implications for the future of regime studies	18
New perspectives on international party assistance	18
Weak agency and preferences for participatory democracy: discourses of Spanish people in positions of socioeconomic disadvantage	17
Brilliant tragedy? Electoral effects of environmental protest cycle in autocracy	17
Inching toward democratization? Comparing Cuba’s National Assembly elections, 2018 and 2023	16
After the Arab Uprisings. Progress and Stagnation in the Middle East	15
Personalist ruling parties in democracies	15
Transnational repression in the age of globalization	14

Beyond Presidentialism and Parliamentarism: Democratic Design and the Separation of Powers	13
Mnemonic politics among Philippine voters: a social media measurement approach	12
Dark politics	12
From democratization to fostering resilience: EU intervention and the challenges of building institutions, social trust, and legitimacy in Bosnia and Herzegovina	11
A people power philosophy: republican ideology in opposition in Tanzania	11
Routledge handbook of EU-Middle East relations	11
Looking beyond democratic backsliding: analysing the political economy context of Turkey’s regime trajectory through a mode of participation approach	11
When elites concede: state capacity and the management of protest in Mexico	10
Shock to the system: Coups, elections, and war on the road to democratization	10
Resistance to populism	10
Democracy and Nationalism in Southeast Asia. From secessionist mobilization to conflict resolution	10
When autocratization is reversed: episodes of U-Turns since 1900	10
Geopolitics and democracy: the Western liberal order from foundation to fracture	9
Militant democracy and the pre-emptive constitution: from party bans to hardened term limits	8
How electoral competition shapes local public goods provision in South Africa	8
Public broadcasting and democracy’s defense: responses to far-right parties in Germany and Sweden	8
Authoritarian gravity centers a cross-regional study of authoritarian promotion and diffusion	8
Property without rights. Origins and consequences of the property rights gap	8
How security shaped Libya’s transition	8
Gaming democracy: how Silicon Valley leveled up the far right	8
Tanzania under Magufuli: the personalization of a party-based regime	8
Academic freedom and the onset of autocratization	8
On motives and means: how approach and justification for court-curbing impact public trust	8
Alternative patterns to electoral autocracy: recognizing diversity in contemporary autocratization processes	7
Why do some coups lead to democratization?	7
Fading freedoms: democratic decline in Albania	7
Democratization, state capacity and developmental correlates of international artificial intelligence trade	7
Conditionality & coercion: electoral clientelism in Eastern Europe	7
The Druze vote in Israel: between ideology, socioeconomic status, kinship, and the Nation-State Basic Law	7
Job insecurity, economic resources, and democratic backsliding: evidence from South Korea	7
The relationship between affective polarization and democratic backsliding: comparative evidence	7
Political plasticity: the future of democracy and dictatorship	6
Where do social media and education meet? A closer look at understanding of democracy	6
Political trust and attitudes toward civil disobedience: evidence from Taiwan	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
Revolution and dictatorship. The violent origins of durable authoritarianism	6
The COVID-19 pandemic and popular confidence in democracy: evidence from China, Japan, and South Korea	6
Why is party-based autocracy more durable? Examining the role of elite institutions and mass organization	6
Populism and civil–military relations	6
The mechanisms of personalization	5
Information, doubt, and democracy: how digitization spurs democratic decay	5
Democracy rules	5
Electoral Reform and Democracy in Malaysia	5
Authoritarian collaboration and repression in the digital age: balancing foreign direct investment and control in internet infrastructure	5
Gateway to dissent: the role of pro-Palestine activism in opposition to authoritarianism	5
The geography of autocracy. Regime preferences along the rural-urban divide in 32 countries	5
Enchanted Revolution: Ghosts, Shamans, and Gender Politics in Chinese Communist Propaganda, 1942–1953	5
Explaining judges’ opposition when judicial independence is undermined: insights from Poland, Romania, and Hungary	5
Hailing the State: Indian Democracy Between Elections	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

Who’s to blame for democratic backsliding: populists, presidents or dominant executives?	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
Explaining the failure of legislative agency in patronal divided executives: deputy meaning making and its impact on legislative quality in Kyrgyzstan 2010–2020	5
What do you call the political upheaval? The conceptual linkage between revolutions and coups	4
Patterns of democratic backsliding in third-wave democracies: a sequence analysis perspective	4
Unravelling democratic erosion: who drives the slow death of democracy, and how?	4
On the effectiveness of democracy aid in post-civil war recipient countries	4
Opening up the notion of “closing space”: accounting for normative, actor, and political system diversity	4
Activism in the era of democratic backsliding: explaining the efficacy of the clean-air campaigns in Poland	4
The machinery of #techno-colonialism crafting “democracy.” A glimpse into digital sub-netizenship in Mexico	4
Individual or collective rights? Consequences for the satisfaction with democracy among Indigenous peoples in Latin America	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
Public attitudes toward external democracy promotion in Africa	4
State of the world 2022: defiance in the face of autocratization	4
When reorganizing coercion backfires: explaining the mechanisms of revolt in Sudan and Algeria	4
Changing the rules to win the game again: does presidential term-limit evasion affect measures of electoral integrity?	4
Competing demand-side explanations and populism: cross-national variation in a recursive ideational system	4
Transnational securitization and violence: the discursive mechanism behind the pro-AKP diaspora’s repression of the dissident diaspora groups in the West	4
The conflict within: the politics of parliamentary election management in Iran	4
Stalker states: Are democracies more likely to snoop on citizens’ data on Facebook?	4
Evaluating Europe's push to enact AI regulations: how will this influence global norms?	4
The modern manual of authoritarian leadership	3
Resilience, conflict and areas of limited statehood in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria	3
Facing protests in Serbia: patterns of new competitive authoritarianism	3
Do mutually reinforcing cleavages harm democracy? Inequalities between ethnic groups and autocratization	3
Strategic responses to autocratization in international democracy promotion	3
Protesting for autocracy: economic vulnerability and anti-democratic protest attendance in Tunisia	3
Blood gambit: how autocratizing populists fuel ethnic conflict to reverse election setbacks – evidence from Turkey and Israel	3
Is community service an act of political resistance? the “community pantry” phenomenon in the Philippines and voter behaviour	3
Sociology of corruption: patterns of illegal association in Hungary	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
Pastoral power, clerical state. Pentecostalism, gender, and sexuality in Nigeria Pastoral power, clerical state. Pentecostalism, gender, and sexuality in Nigeria , by Eb	3
Militarized elections and citizens’ support for democratic rights: evidence from India	3
What does the population in Niger think about a military government?	3
Lobbying the autocrat: the dynamics of policy advocacy in nondemocracies	3
The Authoritarian Divide: populism, propaganda, and polarization	3
Autocracy & Resistance in the Internet Age	3
Coming out of the liberal closet. Think tanks and de-democratization in Poland	3
Elite strategy in resilient authoritarianism: Equatorial Guinea, 1979–2023	3
Proportional representation and party fragmentation in electoral autocracies	3
Power and politics in Africa: a boundary generator	3
Elections, legitimacy, and compliance in authoritarian regimes: evidence from the Arab world	3
Weak party system institutionalization and autocratization: evidence from Tunisia	3
The longer the worse? The case of populism, anti-pluralism, and constitutional compliance	3
Quietist Salafism and survival: pious politics in Morocco and Algeria	3