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Inside Modi’s “Cockroach” Crackdown
Resuf Ahmed
The youth-led Cockroach Janta Party has scored important wins against Modi. But they need to keep learning if they are going to turn public outrage into real change.
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October 2026, Volume 37, Issue 4
Competitive Authoritarianism in America
Steven Levitsky
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Drawn from the HTML mttr fetched, not a screenshot.page.md754 words, about 2,148 tokens
[*Inside Modi’s “Cockroach” Crackdown* Resuf Ahmed The youth-led Cockroach Janta Party has scored important wins against Modi. But they need to keep learning if they are going to turn public outrage into real change.](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/online-exclusive/inside-modis-cockroach-crackdown/)
[October 2026, Volume 37, Issue 4 *Competitive Authoritarianism in America* Steven Levitsky Lucan A. Way The United States has slid into competitive authoritarianism. The slide has been modest and remains reversible—but it is real. Even after Donald Trump, American democracy will remain fragile.](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/competitive-authoritarianism-in-america/)
[October 2026, Volume 37, Issue 4 *Polarization Is Not the Problem* Lilliana Mason Americans have never been angrier with one another. But polarization is not the disease—it is the response to a revanchist movement seeking to roll back sixty years of social progress.](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/polarization-is-not-the-problem/)
[*Read the October issue free through October 31!*](https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/57678)
## More from the *Journal*
---
[View Archive](https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/journal/98)
October 2026, Volume 37, Issue 4
## [How to Build the Right Coalition](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/how-to-build-the-right-coalition/)
- [Rachel Kleinfeld](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/authors/rachel-kleinfeld/)
Opposition parties cannot defeat backsliding incumbents alone, but big united fronts often fail, too. The important choice lies between unity coalitions and quiet ones—and knowing which to choose can make all the difference.
October 2026, Volume 37, Issue 4
## [How to Break an Autocrat’s Coalition](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/how-to-break-an-autocrats-coalition/)
- [Laura Gamboa](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/authors/laura-gamboa/)
Autocrats look invincible until their allies start to walk away. Defections have brought down regimes from Guatemala to Hungary, and they can be engineered: Raise the costs of standing with the autocrat and ease the path out.
October 2026, Volume 37, Issue 4
## [The Real Liberation Technology](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the-real-liberation-technology/)
- [Rabah Arezki](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/authors/rabah-arezki/)
Social media inspired revolutions that autocrats quickly smothered. Digital payments are different: Rulers cannot switch them off without ruining their own economies. Quietly, they enrich citizens, broaden markets, and build the foundations for a freer society.
October 2026, Volume 37, Issue 4
## [Will AI Surveillance End Bureaucratic Autonomy?](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/will-ai-surveillance-end-bureaucratic-autonomy/)
- [Maria Nagawa](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/authors/maria-nagawa/)
Bureaucrats who slow-walk, leak, and refuse to cooperate have long been democracy’s quiet sentinels. But autocrats armed with AI surveillance will root them out—unless democracies build new legal shields around the administrative state.
## [Latest Online Exclusives](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/category/online-exclusive/)
[**Is Egypt’s Sisi Really Stepping Down in 2030?**](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/online-exclusive/is-egypts-sisi-really-stepping-down-in-2030/) | Hesham Sallam
*Or is this just another ruse? Either way, the fine print in Sisi’s statements suggests even greater military control of Egypt’s elections and political life.*
[**Cubans Are Leading from the Inside**](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/the-frontline/cubans-are-leading-from-the-inside/) | Alina B. López Hernández
*The Cuban people urgently want change, and their courage is rising. This is how civil society stands up as a corrupt system begins to collapse.*
[**Israel’s Slide into Competitive Authoritarianism**](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/online-exclusive/israels-slide-into-competitive-authoritarianism/) | Oded Haklai and Andrew O’Donohue
*Under Netanyahu, Israel has become a competitive authoritarian regime. The country’s upcoming elections are its best chance to halt Israel’s democratic backsliding before it’s too late.*
### [News & Updates](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/jod-online/)
### [Democratic Resistance in Eroding Democracies](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/news-and-updates/democratic-resistance-in-eroding-democracies/)
October 2026
Today the chief threat to democracy comes not from generals in the streets but from elected leaders dismantling it from within.
---
### [Is Germany Falling for the Far Right?](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/news-and-updates/is-germany-falling-for-the-far-right/)
September 2026
For the first time since the party’s founding in 2013, the “firewall” that has kept the far right out of German government is trembling. Can it hold? And what does the AfD’s breakthrough reveal about the health of democracy across Europe?
---
[View More](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/jod-online/)
### Most Read
#### [Competitive Authoritarianism in America](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/competitive-authoritarianism-in-america/)
- [Steven Levitsky](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/authors/steven-levitsky/)
- [Lucan A. Way](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/authors/lucan-a-way/)
The United States has slid into competitive authoritarianism. The slide has been modest and remains reversible—but it is real. Even after Donald Trump, American democracy will remain fragile.
#### [What Putin Fears Most](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/what-putin-fears-most/)
- [Robert Person](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/authors/robert-person/)
- [Michael McFaul](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/authors/michael-mcfaul/)
Forget his excuses. Russia’s autocrat doesn’t worry about NATO. What terrifies him is the prospect of a flourishing Ukrainian democracy.
#### [Polarization Is Not the Problem](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/polarization-is-not-the-problem/)
- [Lilliana Mason](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/authors/lilliana-mason/)
Americans have never been angrier with one another. But polarization is not the disease—it is the response to a revanchist movement seeking to roll back sixty years of social progress.
#### [On Democratic Backsliding](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/on-democratic-backsliding/)
- [Nancy Bermeo](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/authors/nancy-bermeo/)
Old-fashioned military coups and blatant election-day fraud are becoming mercifully rarer these days, but other, subtler forms of democratic regression are a growing problem that demands more attention.
#### [Why India’s Democracy Is Dying](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/why-indias-democracy-is-dying/)
- [Maya Tudor](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/authors/maya-tudor/)
Under Narendra Modi, India is maintaining the trappings of democracy while it increasingly harasses the opposition, attacks minorities, and stifles dissent. It can still reverse course, but the damage is mounting.
A Monthly Column
The Frontline
---
### [Cubans Are Leading from the Inside](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/the-frontline/cubans-are-leading-from-the-inside/)
---
*By Alina B. López Hernández*
[Read Now](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/the-frontline/cubans-are-leading-from-the-inside/)
### [Why Bitcoin Is Freedom Money](https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/970346)
*By Alex Gladstein*
[Read Now](https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/970346)
Read our entire October 2025 issue, featuring “[**What Democracy Does … and Does Not Do**](https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/970345)” by Maya Tudor.
[Sample Issue](https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/55657)
No h1: Give each one h1 that says what the page is.
The figures
100 pages, set against the 168,426 sites with figures.
Readablehigher is better
100%100 of 100 pages
All 168,426 sitesBetter than 47%
Pages whose own text is in the HTML the server sends, enough of it for their kind.
Cleanhigher is better
97%middle page
All 168,426 sitesBetter than 97%
Of the words before script, the share that are the page and not menus, footer and forms.
Costshown, never scored
307,193tokens
About 3,072 a page
To read every page once. A long page that answers well is not worse for it. Tokens are estimated at about 4 characters each.
How its pages spread on Clean
Its middle, 97%
1321183
0%25%50%75%100%
100 pages measured.
Against its rivals
The sites nearest it by what they do, with figures. Close means similar work, not better.
No site near it by what it does has figures yet.
AI crawler access
What robots.txt says to each, as read on October 23, 2026. 8 of 8 may read the site.
journalofdemocracy.org in Agent View: 100% of pages readable, better than 47% of sites; 97% clean; 307,193 tokens to read all 100 pages. mttr.si/agent-view/journalofdemocracy.org
What to do next
Fix the pages, let an agent do it, and read the site again to see the figures move.
Drawn from the HTML mttr fetched on its read of October 23, 2026, not a screenshot, and only from the 100 pages read, where the read stopped at its page limit. An assistant’s own reader may differ. Tokens are estimated at about 4 characters each. A site an agent reads well is not a site an assistant cites.
