The paper points out that there is hardly any research for the reverse transition, the transition from democracy to non-democratic regimes for more than 30 years. For heuristical purposes, it provides basic data of the decline of democracy, which refers to loss of democratic quality, changes...

Causal mechanisms and related contextual variables are crucial to the study of the resource-conflict link, but little systematic research has been done on their exact functioning. This paper contributes to the filling of this gap by comparing four major oil exporters (Algeria, Iran, Nigeria, and...

Subnational comparative research has received increasing attention as a method that is academically rigorous and offers in-depth knowledge about specific cases. However, the practical difficulties surrounding the selection of cases to be researched and compared are seldom discussed in a...

Um die Gestalt und die Funktionsweise politischer Herrschaftssysteme zu verstehen und zu erklären, ist es notwendig, deren informelle Elemente - die neben formalen Elementen existieren und mit diesen interagieren - in den Blick zu nehmen. In der Tat haben sich die Politikwissenschaft und die...