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 2021-08-01 to 2025-08-01.)

Article	Citations
Dictatorship and information: authoritarian regime resilience in communist Europe and China	89
The authoritarian international. Tracing how authoritarian regimes learn in the post-soviet space	62
The European Parliament’s democracy promotion activities in the face of autocratization in South America: the cases of Bolivia and Venezuela	51
The two genotypes of secession. Explaining non-nationalist independence claims in federal-authoritarian regimes	37
Power and progress: our thousand-year struggle over technology and prosperity	37
Delegative democratic attitude and public opinion on human rights: empirical evidence from the Philippines	35
Who tolerates democratic backsliding? A mosaic approach to voters’ responses to authoritarian leadership in Hungary	34
A tale of two cities: spillover effects of electoral shocks in non-democratic regimes	29
Digital authoritarianism in the Middle East: deception, disinformation and social media Digital authoritarianism in the Middle East: deception, disinformation and social media	25
New perspectives on international party assistance	23
What is a “regime”? Three definitions and their implications for the future of regime studies	23
Soldiers of democracy? Military legacies and the Arab Spring	23
Inching toward democratization? Comparing Cuba’s National Assembly elections, 2018 and 2023	18
Patterns of incumbents’ repression during autocratization	18
Local power play: the post-election repression and local governance	17
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	16
Formal power in informal networks. Distribution of power resources in personalized bureaucracies: the case of Russia’s subnational elites	16
Casting a new light on the democratic spectator	16
Ramping up control: how judicial harassment and online smear campaigns work in tandem to limit dissent in Thailand	14
How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs: The Syrian Congress of 1920 and the Destruction of its Liberal-Islamic Alliance	14
The king’s speeches: environmental sustainability as a discursive legitimation project in autocracies. Evidence from Morocco.	14
Radical movement-parties, political change and the epistemology of elections: evidence from Lebanon	13
The spirit of populism: sacred, charismatic, redemptive, and apocalyptic dimensions	13
After the Arab Uprisings. Progress and Stagnation in the Middle East	12

Transnational repression in the age of globalization	12
Personalist ruling parties in democracies	12
Dark politics	12
Resistance to populism	11
Shock to the system: Coups, elections, and war on the road to democratization	11
Routledge handbook of EU-Middle East relations	10
Beyond Presidentialism and Parliamentarism: Democratic Design and the Separation of Powers	10
A people power philosophy: republican ideology in opposition in Tanzania	10
Looking beyond democratic backsliding: analysing the political economy context of Turkey’s regime trajectory through a mode of participation approach	10
Geopolitics and democracy: the Western liberal order from foundation to fracture	9
Wealth, power, and authoritarian institutions: comparing dominant parties and parliaments in Tanzania and Uganda	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
Gaming democracy: how Silicon Valley leveled up the far right	8
When autocratization is reversed: episodes of U-Turns since 1900	8
Academic freedom and the onset of autocratization	8
Tanzania under Magufuli: the personalization of a party-based regime	8
Mnemonic politics among Philippine voters: a social media measurement approach	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
Militant democracy and the pre-emptive constitution: from party bans to hardened term limits	7
How electoral competition shapes local public goods provision in South Africa	7
On motives and means: how approach and justification for court-curbing impact public trust	7
Property without rights. Origins and consequences of the property rights gap	7
Not Islamists, Muslim democrats: Tunisian Ennahda ’s path of ideological moderation (2011–2018)	7
Fading freedoms: democratic decline in Albania	7
How security shaped Libya’s transition	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	6
The COVID-19 pandemic and popular confidence in democracy: evidence from China, Japan, and South Korea	6
Job insecurity, economic resources, and democratic backsliding: evidence from South Korea	6
Political plasticity: the future of democracy and dictatorship	6
Revolution and dictatorship. The violent origins of durable authoritarianism	6
Why is party-based autocracy more durable? Examining the role of elite institutions and mass organization	6
The geography of autocracy. Regime preferences along the rural-urban divide in 32 countries	6
Information, doubt, and democracy: how digitization spurs democratic decay	6
Why do some coups lead to democratization?	6
Political trust and attitudes toward civil disobedience: evidence from Taiwan	6
Democratization, state capacity and developmental correlates of international artificial intelligence trade	6
Explaining judges’ opposition when judicial independence is undermined: insights from Poland, Romania, and Hungary	6
Alternative patterns to electoral autocracy: recognizing diversity in contemporary autocratization processes	5
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	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
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
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
Trust under threat: challenges in a digital society	5
Hailing the State: Indian Democracy Between Elections	5
Democracy rules	5
Populism and civil–military relations	5

Where do social media and education meet? A closer look at understanding of democracy	5
The political economy of digital authoritarianism: evidence from the Iranian regime’s implementation of technology	5
Electoral Reform and Democracy in Malaysia	5
State of the world 2022: defiance in the face of autocratization	5
Enchanted Revolution: Ghosts, Shamans, and Gender Politics in Chinese Communist Propaganda, 1942–1953	5
Who’s to blame for democratic backsliding: populists, presidents or dominant executives?	5
Conditionality & coercion: electoral clientelism in Eastern Europe	5
Authoritarian collaboration and repression in the digital age: balancing foreign direct investment and control in internet infrastructure	5
Public attitudes toward external democracy promotion in Africa	5
The mechanisms of personalization	5
Evaluating Europe's push to enact AI regulations: how will this influence global norms?	5
Competing demand-side explanations and populism: cross-national variation in a recursive ideational system	4
The conflict within: the politics of parliamentary election management in Iran	4
The longer the worse? The case of populism, anti-pluralism, and constitutional compliance	4
Individual or collective rights? Consequences for the satisfaction with democracy among Indigenous peoples in Latin America	4
On the effectiveness of democracy aid in post-civil war recipient countries	4
Political polarization in Korea	4
The Authoritarian Divide: populism, propaganda, and polarization	4
Opening up the notion of “closing space”: accounting for normative, actor, and political system diversity	4
Changing the rules to win the game again: does presidential term-limit evasion affect measures of electoral integrity?	4
Transnational securitization and violence: the discursive mechanism behind the pro-AKP diaspora’s repression of the dissident diaspora groups in the West	4
Stalker states: Are democracies more likely to snoop on citizens’ data on Facebook?	4
Patterns of democratic backsliding in third-wave democracies: a sequence analysis perspective	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
Gateway to dissent: the role of pro-Palestine activism in opposition to authoritarianism	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
What do you call the political upheaval? The conceptual linkage between revolutions and coups	4
Activism in the era of democratic backsliding: explaining the efficacy of the clean-air campaigns in Poland	4
Sociology of corruption: patterns of illegal association in Hungary	4
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
Elite strategy in resilient authoritarianism: Equatorial Guinea, 1979–2023	3
Facing protests in Serbia: patterns of new competitive authoritarianism	3
Quietist Salafism and survival: pious politics in Morocco and Algeria	3
The modern manual of authoritarian leadership	3
Weak party system institutionalization and autocratization: evidence from Tunisia	3
Proportional representation and party fragmentation in electoral autocracies	3
Malaysia’s democratic deficit: why youth may not be the answer	3
Party proliferation and political contestation in Africa: Senegal in comparative perspective	3
The personalization of government: concept and comparative analysis	3
Waiting for Dignity: Legitimacy and Authority in Afghanistan	3
What does the population in Niger think about a military government?	3
Do mutually reinforcing cleavages harm democracy? Inequalities between ethnic groups and autocratization	3
Strategic responses to autocratization in international democracy promotion	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
Pastoral power, clerical state. Pentecostalism, gender, and sexuality in Nigeria Pastoral power, clerical state. Pentecostalism, gender, and sexuality in Nigeria , by Eb	3
Power and politics in Africa: a boundary generator	3
Benign bureaucracies? Religious affairs ministries as institutions of political control	3
Online repression and tactical evasion: evidence from the 2020 Day of Anger protests in Egypt	3
Correction	3
German political foundations’ democracy promotion in autocratizing Tanzania: opening spaces for civil society support and transnational learning	3
Why do autocracies enfranchise their citizens abroad? A large-N event history analysis, 1990–2010	3
Militarized elections and citizens’ support for democratic rights: evidence from India	3
Coming out of the liberal closet. Think tanks and de-democratization in Poland	3
Blood gambit: how autocratizing populists fuel ethnic conflict to reverse election setbacks – evidence from Turkey and Israel	3
Protesting for autocracy: economic vulnerability and anti-democratic protest attendance in Tunisia	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
A poisonous cocktail: ethnic quotas, liberal voting rights and the democracy problem	3
Demographic structure and voting behaviour during democratization: evidence from Malaysia’s 2022 election	3