Category: Authoritarianism

Democratic adaptability vs autocratic ruthlessness: Coronavirus impacts great power competition

     

The major dividing line in effective crisis response will not place autocracies on one side and democracies on the other, argues Stanford’s Francis Fukuyama. Rather, there will be some high-performing… Read more »

World in a ‘dangerous place for maintaining a democratic future’

     

Has the coronavirus placed the world in a “really dangerous place for maintaining a democratic future”? With much of the world on lockdown, the coronavirus crisis has chipped individual liberties… Read more »

Kremlin joins China’s sharp power bandwagon

     

The coronavirus pandemic confirms that China’s authoritarian state capitalism with its hegemonic ambitions is by far the most difficult strategic challenge the West has ever faced, according to one observer…. Read more »

China’s ‘misplaced pandemic propaganda’ machine let loose on coronavirus

     

As the COVID-19 pandemic escalates, China has shifted its propaganda machine into high gear, in an effort to change the narrative about the virus’s origins and the Chinese response. But… Read more »

Surveillance or solidarity? Democracies respond to Covid-19

     

Pandemics are democratizing experiences and can also catalyze social change. The Atlantic’s Ed Yong writes: People, businesses, and institutions have been remarkably quick to adopt or call for practices that… Read more »

Russia under Putin: 20 years of protests

     

Calling for “discipline and responsibility” in the face of the coronavirus, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Wednesday announced the postponement of a referendum next month on whether he… Read more »

Covid-19’s latest victim: Hungary’s democracy

     

Covid-19 is about to claim a new victim: Hungary’s democracy, argues Dalibor Rohac, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. The country’s parliament is set to adopt a new law… Read more »

Safeguarding democracy from disinformation: China takes page from Russia’s playbook

     

China is taking a page from Russia’s disinformation playbook, observers suggest. The Chinese Communist Party has spent the past week publicly pushing conspiracy theories intended to cast doubt on the origins… Read more »

From cover-up to global donor: China’s Covid-19 sharp power play

     

China is sending doctors and medical supplies to Italy and other countries that have been hit hard by the coronavirus. WSJ’s Eric Sylvers in Milan explains how China is using… Read more »

COVID-19: A ‘breakthrough moment’ for China’s sharp power in global battle of narratives?

     

    Tomorrow’s front page of The Financial Times (above) confirms that the UK is the latest democracy to adopt unprecedented measures in an effort to combat the coronavirus pandemic…. Read more »