CCP members urge Xi’s resignation
This year’s National People’s Congress put on a brave face, but once the reckoning has begun it will be impossible for China’s Communist authorities to retain a facade of… Read more »
Author Archives: DemDigest
Kanan Makiya: why Iraq failed after liberation
Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, no voice arguing for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein had greater moral weight than that of Kanan Makiya*, notes Reuel Marc Gerecht, a senior… Read more »
Is Russia’s National Character Authoritarian?
The revival of authoritarianism in Russia cannot be explained in terms of differences in deep attitudes toward free markets or democracy, notes Nobel laureate Robert J. Shiller. It’s wrong to… Read more »
Aware Girls confront deadly double standard
In this week’s Global Thinkers podcast, “India’s Daughter” director Leslee Udwin joins human rights activist Gulalai Ismail (left, with Malala Yousafzai) to share personal stories of discrimination and discuss the challenges in convincing women… Read more »
CAR communal solidarity against violent extremists
In a starling display of communal reconciliation in the Central African Republic, Muslim and non-Muslim communities in Bangui marched between two rival neighborhoods in an “inter-community tour” organized by… Read more »
Can Europe’s last dictatorship avoid a meltdown?
Belarus has seen very little political change since gaining its independence in 1990, in spite of a warming in relations with the European Union (EU), which has recently ended visa bans and… Read more »
Democracy must be at the center of U.S. foreign policy
Supporting freedom around the world does not mean imposing American values or staging military interventions, notes an open letter to the U.S. presidential candidates signed by 139 foreign policy thinkers… Read more »
Autocracies Failed and Unfailed: strategies for ‘good enough governance’
Successful democratization attempts depend mostly on the interests of local elites, Stanford University’s Stephen D. Krasner argues in Autocracies Failed and Unfailed: Limited Strategies for State Building, the third of the Atlantic… Read more »
Toward a negotiated transition in Syria?
Today, the Ides of March, marks the fifth anniversary of the rebellion in Syria against the Assad regime, notes Elliott Abrams, a Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the… Read more »
Brazil’s corruption scandal a sign of ‘maturing democracy’
Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians took to the streets over the weekend to protest their government and to send a message to the country’s political class: No one is… Read more »