Category: Civil Society

Why history isn’t moving inexorably in the direction of democracy

     

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it seemed that history was moving inexorably in the direction of democracy and free markets—that we’d reached the “end of history” and could… Read more »

Social media ‘weaponized’: Collective action needed to halt ‘abuse and deception’ of democratic process

     

Should we accept that the current social media model is incompatible with a healthy democracy? Social media has changed the nature of democratic conversation, argues Andrew Marantz [@andrewmarantz], author of… Read more »

How Ukraine became Eastern Europe’s ‘vibrant’ democratic success

     

When the Ukrainian autocrat Viktor Yanukovych fled to Russia after a popular uprising in 2014, thousands of citizens poured into Mezhyhirya, his 340-acre estate on the outskirts of Kiev, Michelle… Read more »

Targeted: How social media is breaking democracy

     

Russian government-backed cyber aggression is heightening concerns from the west following a spate of high-profile incidents, prompting threats of countermeasures from the likes of Nato, the EU and UK, the… Read more »

The ‘real anti-system candidate’ set to curb foreign funds, remake Tunisian politics

     

Law professor Kais Saied, an independent candidate who did little campaigning, was projected to win a landslide victory (The FT reports, HT:CFR) in the country’s presidential election. Saied, a social… Read more »

Bending the knee to Beijing’s ‘proxy power’. Can democratic values survive in a Chinese world?

     

If you want to understand what’s happening in the National Basketball Association, turn off SportsCenter and pick up “The Art of War,” argues Ben Sasse, a Republican, who represents Nebraska… Read more »

Democracy’s precarious position: New social contract for survival and renewal

     

The U.S. government has supported democracy for decades. While this principle has never been applied evenly—all Presidents have made compromises in the name of national security—the policy paid off with… Read more »

Late dictator ‘casts a shadow’ over Tunisia’s bumpy transition to democracy

     

Tunisia’s vote for president on Sunday is the next step in its bumpy transition to democracy after a revolution that triggered the “Arab Spring” uprisings of 2011, Reuters reports. In… Read more »