Introducing Democracy Lab: A new web project tracking a world in transition

13 January 2012

The Legatum Institute and Foreign Policy Magazine announced today the launch of Democracy Lab, a new channel on the magazine's award-winning website at ForeignPolicy.com dedicated to covering political and economic transitions around the world.

When World War II ended, there were only a dozen or so democracies in the world. Today, there are 115—many of which joined the club within the last decade or two—and many more, as the revolutions of 2011 showed, on the way. Theirs is the story Democracy Lab aims to track.

Democracy Lab, which launches today with a roster of leading writers and thinkers such as Francis Fukuyama and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Applebaum, is edited by veteran foreign correspondent Christian Caryl and will feature a daily blog, “Transitions," produced by a global network of contributors covering change as it unfolds on the ground in countries from Burma to Egypt, as well as profiles of key political and economic players in transitional societies, detailed case studies, and a wide range of expert analysis and opinion.

You can follow Democracy Lab on Twitter and Facebook and sign up to the RSS feed.

For Democracy Lab's debut, Francis Fukuyama writes on the basic human need for dignity and respect as a driving force in the search for democracy; bloggers from Egypt, Burma, Venezuela, Indonesia, and Uganda tackle the problems of transition in their respective countries; Hernando de Soto describes how legal reform and the protection of property rights offer salvation for Egypt's economy; Anne Applebaum argues that Western governments often end up abetting corruption in countries where they claim to be fighting it; and leading Burmese journalist Aung Zaw offers a portrait of the mysterious leader behind that country's tentative opening.

Regular features on Democracy Lab will include:

The daily Transitions blog, with regular contributors from nations all along the spectrum of change. Countries we're following to start range from Egypt to Indonesia, Burma to Venezuela.

A weekly column by Democracy Lab editor Christian Caryl, a longtime Newsweek journalist and Legatum Institute Senior Fellow.

Original features such as Aung Zaw's penetrating report on Burma's reforming general, case studies of change, interviews with leading figures, and a regular column on the thorny problems of economic reform by Peter Passell, a former New York Times economics columnist and member of the editorial board, who is joining Caryl as Economics Editor of Democracy Lab.

"We cover the global story of societies trying to make the political and economic transition from authoritarianism to democracy," said Christian Caryl, Democracy Lab editor and a Senior Fellow at the Legatum Institute. "The struggles of dissidents and reformers, the push for free elections and the fight against corruption: you'll find it all on Democracy Lab."

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