elections

Young South Africans Are Sick of the Status Quo

This Election Season, No One Is Fighting for Our Future—Mandela’s Party Included

This year we celebrate the milestone of 30 years as a democratic state and the seventh general election in which all South Africans regardless of race are allowed to vote.

Our history is long, bloody, and racist. South Africa’s apartheid system lasted nearly half a century, from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was a system that suppressed Black South Africans and where the minority white population controlled political decisions, the economy, and society. The majority of the South African population faced systematic discrimination in all facets of life, including housing, …

by Georgia Cloete |

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What Do Indian Women Want from This Election?

They’re Voting in Historic Numbers. But It Might Not Make Them Happier or More Prosperous

by Sanjukta Sharma |

Since April 19, the day general elections began in India, voters have queued up outside polling booths, braving a muggy, scorching heatwave. The mood appears mostly upbeat. Voters talk to …

Will Young Americans Finally Rock the Vote?

After Decades of Research, We Know How to Get New People to the Polls. We Just Don’t Always Do It

by Jane Eisner |

Twenty years ago, I published Taking Back the Vote: Getting American Youth Involved in Our Democracy. The book grew out of a personal passion: Once my oldest child was able …

Will Indonesia’s Youth Install a Political Dynasty? | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Will Indonesia’s Youth Install a Political Dynasty?

On TikTok, Gen Z Voters See the Candidates as Father Figures and Kindly Uncles. They Don’t Get the Whole Story

by Amalinda Savirani |

President Suharto’s New Order regime was a dictatorship in which he often liked to refer to the Indonesian nation as a “family” with himself at the helm—a patriarchal …

In Indonesia, an Election Without Artists | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

An Election Without Artists

The Outgoing Indonesian President’s Campaigns Inspired Songs, Paintings, and Poems. Creatives’ Silence in This Race Speaks Volumes

by Sheila Rooswitha Putri |

The absence of art in Indonesia’s presidential election has been noticeable.

Back in 2014, when Joko Widodo—known as Jokowi—campaigned to become the seventh president of this republic, …

Can a Third of My Neighbors Really Be Far-Right Extremists?

I Joined a United Germany When the Wall Fell. Now I Fear for Its Future

by Ralf-Uwe Beck |

I grew up in East Germany, in the former German Democratic Republic, and I am still here today.

In the fall of 1989, we liberated ourselves from dictatorial conditions through a …


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