Renewed confrontation in Georgia?
European Union membership “is a historical choice” for Georgia, according to Foreign Minister Mikheil Janelidze (above). “We are not a country which just decides to join blocs,” he told… Read more »
Category: Authoritarianism
Vietnam’s ‘Lady Gaga’ joins dissident gatecrashers running for parliament
Vietnam’s constitution pays lip service to democratic principles, but the country of 93m people is a repressive one-party state. In it, ordinary folk have little say over who their… Read more »
The Obama Doctrine: from ‘democratic messianism’ to ‘passive progressivism’?
Experience has taught President Barack Obama to temper his idealism with a pragmatic, realist approach to foreign policy, leading him to reject liberal Democratic interventionism. Yet he remains a democratic… Read more »
Growing resistance to China’s political controls
The rise of ‘abusively racist clown’ Donald Trump proves democracy doesn’t work, according to China’s ruling Communist Party, citing his success as latest example of how allowing the masses a say in choosing… Read more »
Russia – a ‘hollow superpower’
Vladimir Putin was losing legitimacy even before the economy shriveled [but] with action in Ukraine and Syria, he has made it appear that Russia is the equal—and rival—of America, The… Read more »
Shaping the West’s stance toward Global Illiberalism
Today it looks as if the days of the [pro-Kremlin] Russlandverstehers’ unchallenged dominion in explaining Russia to Germany are over, at least on the expert level and in public opinion, analyst… Read more »
Putin’s Crimea – no vacation
Human rights and freedom of expression in Crimea today are more tightly restricted than in Russia, where the Kremlin cannot exert the same level of control. For Russian President… Read more »
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 »
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 »
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 »