Category: Central/Eastern Europe

Anti-populist lessons from eastern Europe’s civil society

     

There are lessons to be learned on populism from new initiatives in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, argues Orysia Lutsevych, the manager of the Ukraine Forum with Chatham House, the London-based… Read more »

How illiberalism took hold of central Europe

     

Leading Polish intellectuals are speaking out against the country’s judicial reforms. Fearing Poland’s democracy is at stake, they have urged the European Court of Justice to intervene, Deutsche-Welle reports: Former… Read more »

How the Kremlin wages hybrid warfare

     

One of the greatest challenges facing democracies is “how to deal with authoritarian states that use the West’s democratic norms and institutions against itself, attempting to take advantage of, and… Read more »

Slovenia poll indicative of Orban’s illiberal soft power?

     

As expected, the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) won Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Slovenia with 25 percent of the vote. Taking a cue from Hungarian leader Viktor Orban, SDS employed anti-migration rhetoric… Read more »

Abandoning the transatlantic ideological battle against autocrats?

     

  Vladimir Putin’s attempt to restore Russia’s status as a great power rival to the United States lends new urgency to transatlantic relations, since Europe is the foremost theater in… Read more »

Digital dangers confronting civil society

     

Digital Dangers & Civil Society: Firsthand Accounts from Global Activists is the subject of a discussion organized by the Information Safety and Capacity Project (left), highlighting the “global trend of… Read more »

Democracies’ immune system against extremism is failing

     

Moral and cultural organisations must strive harder to rid the body politic of populist infection, in central Europe and elsewhere, says Tomáš Halík, a professor of sociology at Charles University in… Read more »

West’s anti-corruption efforts failing in Ukraine?

     

Russia is run by people who are stealing left, right, and center. Its a kleptocracy, says Mark Galeotti, author of The Vory: Russia’s Super Mafia, out Tuesday from Yale University Press…. Read more »

Mustafa Dzhemilev’s unwavering determination to defend Crimean Tatars’ rights

     

  Two traumatic events, 70 years apart, frame the life and struggles of Mustafa Dzhemilev, according to National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman. The first was Stalin’s forced deportation… Read more »

‘Disinformation Wars: Western democracies ill-prepared for coming wave of ‘deep fakes’

     

  Western democracies are ill-prepared for the coming wave of “deep fakes” that artificial intelligence could unleash, according to Chris Meserole, a fellow in the Brookings Institution’s Center for Middle… Read more »