New US-China Cold War is ‘desirable’ or ‘not inevitable’?
In the year before the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, campuses in China buzzed with debate about how to make the country more liberal. To some intellectuals the West offered… Read more »
Category: Authoritarianism
Roots of strategic competition with Russia
The longstanding U.S. commitment to democracy and liberal values is perceived by Russia as, at best, a threat to regional stability and, at worst, an existential threat to the Russian… Read more »
Belarus to Ukraine: Democratic awakening ‘can’t be put back in the bottle’
The experience of Afghanistan over the past 20 years illustrates the problems and contradictions inherent in the democracy-promotion agenda, The Economist Intelligence Unit’s annual Democracy Index asserts. The issue of… Read more »
The China challenge: Should the West be worried?
How much of a challenge does China’s political model pose globally? That’s the principal question posed by The Economist Intelligence Unit’s latest annual Democracy Index. The potency of this political… Read more »
‘A democracy in action’: Ukraine’s new civic identity
While the world’s eyes are on the diplomatic surge trying to head off a Russian invasion of Ukraine, WBUR reports, for Ukrainians themselves, there’s also something else — the feeling… Read more »
Learning the hard way about Chinese sharp power
This week, a major university in D.C. found itself in the position of censoring criticism of the Chinese government by removing art posters highlighting Beijing’s human rights abuses during the… Read more »
The world – and Olympics – sliding toward authoritarianism
The authoritarian challenge to democracy and human rights is arguably the defining geopolitical story of our time. But rather than oppose this trend, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) seems to… Read more »
Digital democracy by 2035?
Future digital communities will clamp down on divisive anti-social contributions that dampen public participation in democracy and a Digital Bill of Rights will govern at least a share of the… Read more »
Ukraine: ‘Thwart Kremlin aggression today for constructive relations tomorrow’
Most, if not all, policymakers in the democratic West have learned that not sufficiently countering Russian revanchism taught Vladimir Putin that he could get away with more aggression, say the… Read more »
It’s the ideology, stupid: Ukraine’s cause ‘no less vital than Prague Spring’
For civil society, the cause of Ukraine should be no less vital than the defense of the Prague Spring of 1968 against Soviet invasion, observers suggest. Putin must attack Ukraine… Read more »