Inside Wuhan: China’s struggle to control the virus — and the narrative
Hao Jun, in his late forties, is one of a small but tight-knit group of dissidents based in Wuhan who took it upon themselves to document the earliest days of… Read more »
Category: Analysis
Autocratic assertion meets democratic dereliction
The coronavirus pandemic must not be used as a pretext for authoritarian states to trample over individual human rights, or repress the free flow of information, the UN secretary general… Read more »
The Peronist & the pandemic: Argentina’s new hegemony or social chaos?
Argentina’s president, Alberto Fernández, and the country he leads are entering a dangerous new phase, the Economist reports. Pressure to ease the lockdown is building before the pandemic has peaked…. Read more »
Pandemic of power grabs: Autocrats’ opportunity in disaster
Even as some leaders exploit the COVID-19 pandemic, their inability to deal with popular suffering will act against the myth that they and their regimes are impregnable, the Economist observes…. Read more »
Call to free Iran’s women political prisoners: Virus ‘exacerbates regime’s legitimacy crisis’
The coronavirus is leading Iranians to question the relationship between state and religion, putting the theocratic state in “an unusual and awkward position“, observers suggest. The Islamic Republic had to… Read more »
COVID-19’s new pretexts for consolidating autocrats’ power
Authoritarian-minded leaders around the world have used the coronavirus emergency to consolidate power. In Europe, the governments of Poland and Hungary have done that and more. They have managed to… Read more »
Covid-19 exposing liberal order’s instabilities and weaknesses
The embeddedness of liberal democracies in an interdependent world characterized by relatively free cross-border flows of goods, services, assets and people has amplified the virulent effects of highly contagious deadly… Read more »
Learn to live with despots or avoid ‘realist’ retreat?
Former State Policy Planning Director Steve Krasner (someone we have worked with and respect) has written a piece in Foreign Affairs (“Learning to Live with Despots”) that advocates realism as the… Read more »
When elections hurt democracy
The Algerian government has begun investigating the funding of media organizations and news sources that it claims are using foreign funding to promote anti-government and anti-reform content. The authorities have… Read more »
Friends and Enemies: Understanding Chinese political interference
United States intelligence agencies have assessed that Chinese operatives helped push disinformation about #Covid-19 messages across platforms, according to six American officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to… Read more »