Arab voices address challenges of New Middle East
Five years after the Arab Spring, the crisis of legitimacy that helped precipitate it has lost neither its resonance nor its urgency, according to a qualitative survey of Arab experts… Read more »
Category: Authoritarianism
Why host ‘unseemly parade’ of Asian dictators?
The upcoming US-ASEAN summit will include leaders – like Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia for 25 years – who were previously considered too ruthless and repressive to be received… Read more »
Autocrats’ bag of tricks for staying in power
Excluding hereditary monarchies, there are close to 40 countries around the world in which the national leader has been in power for 10 or more years, writes Freedom House analyst… Read more »
How Putin lost Ukraine
When the Russian inquest finally comes, the answer will be clear. It was President Vladimir Putin who lost Ukraine – after a millennium of shared east Slav identity, argues analyst Elizabeth… Read more »
Khomeini poll exclusion, consultant’s jailing send chilling message from Iran’s hardliners
After months of political maneuvering, the scion of the powerful Khomeini family and the projected figurehead of Iran’s ailing reform movement was definitively barred Wednesday from participating in parliamentary elections… Read more »
Institutionally blind? Human rights abuses in former Soviet Union
Are the major international institutions covering the former Soviet Union meeting their human rights commitments? A new report shows how the independence and integrity of institutions defending human rights in… Read more »
Cuba preparing for ‘probable presidential transition’ in 2018
U.S. intelligence services believe Cuba is preparing for a “probable presidential transition in 2018,” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Tuesday. “Cuban leaders will remain focused on preserving political… Read more »
Baransu case prompts Turkey to lift media bans?
In a move that confirmed the growing restrictions and pressure on the Turkish media, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş has said his government is ready to remove bans that… Read more »
‘Political activity’ an existential issue in Russia
Defining “political activity” may seem like an academic exercise, but in Russia, it is an existential one, notes Tanya Lokshina, Russia program director at Human Rights Watch. The definition is… Read more »
Thousands demand inquiry into Cairo death of labor researcher Regeni
More than 4,600 academics from across the globe have signed an open letter protesting against the death of Giulio Regeni, a Cambridge PhD student from Italy whose body was found… Read more »