Category: anti-democratic

The problem with illiberal democracy: a ‘new iron curtain’?

     

Poland’s turn toward authoritarian rule has set off alarm bells across the European Union and within NATO, notes Jan-Werner Mueller, Professor of Politics at Princeton University. But as long as… Read more »

Forces of change coming to Iran?

     

  Iran‘s president has called on the committee vetting candidates for next month’s parliamentary elections to allow more reformists to stand. In a televised speech, Hassan Rouhani said parliament was… Read more »

Populist discord threatens democracy

     

Pick an adjective to describe the current political mood—angry, anxious, populist—and one thing about the descriptor is certain: It will fit the atmosphere on both sides of the Atlantic equally… Read more »

Russians ambivalent on democracy, civil liberties?

     

  Russians are more concerned about economic and political stability than democracy, according to a new poll conducted by the Levada Center: The poll asked 1,600 Russian respondents to rank issues they viewed… Read more »

The revenge of history: authoritarian narratives

     

Some 25 years after the Cold War, passions grounded in history are increasingly an essential feature of international relations, and dangerously so, argues Bruno Tertrais, a Senior Research Fellow at… Read more »

The authoritarian hijacking of soft power

     

A renewed struggle between democracy and authoritarianism has emerged, argues Christopher Walker, executive director of the International Forum for Democratic Studies at the National Endowment for Democracy. The decade-long democratic… Read more »

Friends, Foes, and Future Partnerships in a Turbulent World

     

To achieve its strategic goals, the United States relies heavily on its allies and coalition partners—the “outer defenses” of America’s security system, notes RAND analyst Hans Binnendijk. It needs partners… Read more »

Liberal democracies ill-equipped to deal with autocrats’ ‘hybrid warfare’

     

The latest version of Russia’s National Security Strategy is the most specifically anti-Western one to date, Leonid Bershidsky writes for Bloomberg: NATO and the European Union are accused of being… Read more »

Has Arab Spring mutated into sectarian strife?

     

After Saudi Arabia’s execution of leading Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr sparked a violent protest at the Saudi Embassy in Iran’s capital, Tehran, Saudi Arabia quickly severed ties with its longtime regional… Read more »