The False Romance of Russia: Competing in the Gray Zone
Russia has been aiming to destabilize both its “near abroad” — the former Soviet states except for the Baltics — and wider Europe through the use of ambiguous “gray zone”… Read more »
Category: anti-corruption
International Anti-Corruption Day: How graft erodes democracy and the rule of law
We should not be surprised at the increased distance between citizens and democratic institutions given the prevalence of corruption, observers suggest. “In too many countries we are witnessing corruption or… Read more »
Latin America’s protests: Temporary social agitation or a sign of troubled democracy?
Violent protests in Latin America have resulted in destroyed property, thousands of arrests and dozens of deaths. Observers, including scholars of the region, are surprised by the recent turmoil in… Read more »
Egypt escalates pressure on last independent media voice
Egyptian security forces targeted one of the last remaining independent news outlets in the country on Saturday, taking a journalist from his home and detaining him in an… Read more »
Iran ‘a powder keg’: Protests ‘strike at heart of regime’s legitimacy’
The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard threatened the U.S. and its allies Monday as he addressed a pro-government demonstration attended by tens of thousands of people denouncing last week’s… Read more »
Global protest wave rattles governments, but can it advance democracy?
Whether the unprecedented wave of protests leads to sustainable democratic transitions depends in large part on the strategic sophistication of illiberal regimes and democratic actors, including the latter’s ability to… Read more »
Fresh hope for Ukraine on Maidan, Holodomor anniversaries?
Do new faces in politics in Ukraine, Moldova, Kazakhstan, and Slovakia mean real change, New Eastern Europe asks. ‘Is this part of a wider trend that indicates deeper social transformation’,… Read more »
World has more but weaker democracies: Backsliding ‘a growing malaise,’ report says
“Despite the continued quantitative increase in the world’s democracies, the quality of the world’s democracies is eroding,” the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) concludes in its… Read more »
Countering kleptocracy – from the inside out
The toxic relationship between the Russian and British elites is something that needs full exposure. They have been collaborating to their mutual enrichment, and to the detriment of democracy and… Read more »
Baltic Road to Freedom: Rhetoric vs. realpolitik
As Soviet communism following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the experience of Baltic “freedom fighters” like Vytautas Landsbergis of Lithuania and Lennart Meri of Estonia demonstrated the “almost unbridgeable… Read more »