Islam and democracy after the Arab Spring
The authoritarian backlash in the Middle East, with the Arab Winter following the Arab Spring, is part of the… Read more »
Category: Authoritarianism
Free speech ‘under siege’ in Vietnam
More than 100 Vietnamese – an unprecedented amount – tried to run in the May 22 election as independents, including activists bent on testing the party’s sincerity about fostering inclusiveness… Read more »
Teflon Putin: corrupt but secure?
The biggest surprise about the Russian reaction to the Panama Papers leaks came in the form of a poster that depicted Russian President Vladimir Putin as the drug-addled protagonist played by Johnny Depp in… Read more »
No sign of reform, transparency in Castros’ Cuba
Critics of President Obama’s diplomatic outreach to Cuba are claiming vindication this week as the island nation’s Communist Party hard-liners — cheered on by an 89-year-old Fidel Castro — moved… Read more »
Civil society in post-Soviet space: legitimacy, linkage and learning
“Partly free” countries in the post-Soviet space must fight even harder now to protect growing civil societies, argues Orysia Lutsevych, the manager of the Ukraine Forum in London-based think tank… Read more »
Democratizing China
Perhaps the most intriguing question regarding political development in the post-Mao era is why China has not taken significant steps toward democratization despite more than two decades of unprecedented… Read more »
Slovakia poll shows impact of Russian propaganda
Slovakia orients neither on Russia nor on the West, according to a recent poll carried out by the Slovak Atlantic Commission (SAC), the Central European Policy Institute (CEPI) and the… Read more »
Aylwin, who led Chile’s post-Pinochet transition, dies at 97
Patricio Aylwin, who as president of Chile in 1990 led the country’s transition to democracy from the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, died on Tuesday at his home here. He was… Read more »
Will the Putin regime crumble?
Yes, says Stephen Sestanovich, the George F. Kennan Senior Fellow for Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a board member of the National Endowment for… Read more »
Myroslava Gongadze – a voice that couldn’t be silenced
Myroslava Gongadze’s husband Georgiy investigated the corrupt regime of Ukraine’s president, Leonid Kuchma. Kuchma did not like this very much, writes The National Review’s Jay Nordlinger: Georgiy was being… Read more »