Category: Civil Society

Autocratic resurgence ‘spells end to West’s global supremacy’?

     

More countries declined than improved in overall rule of law performance for the second year in a row, continuing a negative slide toward weaker rule of law around the world,… Read more »

A new ‘Totalitarian Temptation’? Authoritarians rely on ideas too

     

Sudan’s transition promises to be anything but easy. Economic problems that sparked initial protests in 2018 still await complex solutions, and the state bureaucracy remains weak. How will the military… Read more »

Good governance: Put the dragon back in the egg or learn to ride it?

     

Lebanon’s protesters want ethical universalism, even if the phrase doesn’t appear on any banners or placards. Freedom is no longer enough. They are demanding a government that represents and services… Read more »

New social movement challenging Iraq’s sectarian politics

     

The largest mass protests to hit Iraq and Lebanon in decades are posing a direct challenge to the influence Iran has gained in both countries as demonstrators seek to overturn… Read more »

Reversing CEE democratic backsliding a Sisyphean task

     

Countries in Central and Eastern Europe that made significant gains in building their new democracies following the Cold War are now experiencing a crisis of illiberalism that is weakening the… Read more »

What’s behind Latin America’s ‘Autumn of Discontent’?

     

Latin America was primed to explode. Economic malaise, social media, corruption, and foreign meddling combined to fuel raging protests from Chile to Haiti. What’s next for beleaguered democratic regimes in… Read more »

Where every day is Kristallnacht

     

  Eighty-one years ago this week, in what is also known as the “Night of Broken Glass,” hundreds of synagogues and Jewish cemeteries in Nazi Germany were damaged or destroyed,… Read more »

States of Change: Eastern Europeans ‘fearful for democracy’

     

Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, central and eastern Europeans believe that democracy, freedom of speech and the rule of law are under threat, according to a… Read more »

1989: ‘Ideological lie’ exposed in democracy’s paradoxical moment

     

No empire in history has disintegrated as quickly or as bloodlessly as the Soviet one, in the remarkable year that saw the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989…. Read more »

Arab Spring 2.0? Understanding the New Wave of Protests

     

  A new wave of protests and demonstrations has erupted across the Middle East and North Africa over the past 9 months, the Wilson Center’s Middle East Program observes. In… Read more »