Category: Civil Society

Post-Corona World Disorder: Time to rethink West’s values trade-off?

     

The harsh, unavoidable “reality is the world will never be the same” following the Covid-19 pandemic, according to former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Democracies like the United States can… Read more »

‘Viral Alarm’: China’s rulers enter new era of moral depletion

     

In the six days after top Chinese officials secretly determined they likely were facing a pandemic from a new coronavirus, the city of Wuhan at the epicenter of the disease… Read more »

You don’t defeat the virus by bleeding democracy

     

The Covid-19 pandemic is unlikely to alleviate demands for more democratic governance, respect for human rights, equality, an end to austerity, and meaningful steps to combat climate change and corruption,… Read more »

How Russian trolls weaponize virus lies

     

China isn’t the only authoritarian regime to take advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic to expand its sharp power in an effort to undermine democratic norms and institutions. Russia’s decade-long health… Read more »

Has Xi Jinping won coronavirus ‘battle of narratives’?

     

Chinese officials claim that their “success” in containing the coronavirus outbreak and Western countries’ ongoing “failure” to do so attests to the superiority of the so-called China model of one-party… Read more »

‘Viral Authoritarianism’? COVID-19 turns spotlight on democratic erosion

     

Seoul’s decision to hold the April 15 polls in the middle of a pandemic highlights South Korea’s status as a beacon of democracy in Asia. It stands in stark contrast… Read more »

The democracy undercutting China’s claims to superiority

     

China has been buying up ads on U.S. social-media sites and adopting online tactics reminiscent of Russian disinformation campaigns in an apparent attempt to shape the story internationally about the… Read more »

Will Covid-19 prompt breakdown of democratic regimes?

     

Halfhearted reform in response to the COVID-19 crisis will simply renew the invitation to populists to take up arms against liberal democracy, a leading analyst suggests. A cautionary tale lies… Read more »

Coronavirus: Stress test or silver lining for democracy?

     

Whereas democracies operate on consensus, autocrats react with sweeping measures threatening the rule of law. Who is better prepared for the COVID-19 crisis? Deutsche Welle asks: Austrian democracy researcher Tamara… Read more »