The case of Indonesia demonstrates that in countering violent extremism, democracy and serious efforts to gain legitimacy from the people before taking action are a necessary part of a… Read more »
Pro-democracy activists in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Lutte pour Le Changement (Lucha) movement have called for nationwide protests to demand that President Joseph Kabila steps down from power… Read more »
Fragile states may seem like a distant and abstract concern, but they are not, according to William J. Burns, Michèle A. Flournoy, and Nancy E. Lindborg. They are at… Read more »
Autocratic regimes which repress civil society and curb human rights are “pursuing policies that will almost certainly fail,” according to Tom Malinowski, Assistant Secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of… Read more »
Vladimir Putin cemented his supremacy over Russia’s political system when his ruling United Russia party took three quarters of the seats in parliament in a weekend election, paving the way… Read more »
The European Union External Action Service, the EU’s diplomatic arm, has criticized the Egyptian government’s decision to freeze the assets of leading civil society activists. “The increased pressure on independent… Read more »
Jordan‘s parliament election on Tuesday is being touted as proof that the pro-Western monarchy is moving forward with democratic reforms despite regional turmoil and security threats, AP’s Karin Laub writes:… Read more »
Today, five years later, it’s easy to forget that Syria’s revolution started off amid the optimism of the Arab Spring. The first protests against Assad’s dictatorship were peaceful: Demonstrators were… Read more »
To mark the International Day of Democracy, the Africa Center for Strategic Studies published the above maps highlighting the strong relationship between governance and conflict: Central, Northern, and the… Read more »
Is the trend to restrict civil society, visible in Russia and neighboring countries, getting worse? In some of the countries of the former communist world, it has become more difficult… Read more »