Category: Democracy Assistance and Promotion

Internet’s broken democratic promise: from liberation technology to digital unfreedom?

     

  In the span of just two years, the widely shared utopian vision of the internet’s impact on governance has turned decidedly pessimistic, notes Stanford Law School analyst Nate Persily…. Read more »

Russia’s hybrid warfare ‘ecosystem’ a force multiplier for undercutting democracy

     

The chief of Russia’s armed forces endorsed on Saturday the kind of tactics used by his country to intervene abroad, repeating a philosophy of so-called hybrid war that has earned… Read more »

Rise of revisionist powers means rethinking democracy promotion

     

Greater attention to the preconditions for and impact of freedom and democracy, and to the persistence and varieties of nationalism, would contribute to the formulation of a 21st century foreign policy… Read more »

‘Nothing inevitable or inexorable’ about democracy’s advance – or decline

     

Some observers talk as though democracy is in irreversible decline, but the only way that freedom and democracy will fall is if we let them, USAID Administrator Mark Green told… Read more »

Is liberal democracy resilient enough to confront current challenges?

     

Democracy is “not a one-way street,” and democratic nations can fall back into authoritarianism, according to Mike Abramowitz, president of Freedom House, and Sanford School Dean Judith Kelley. They joined moderator… Read more »

Authoritarian resurgence is a national security threat, Congress told

     

A group of national security experts testified Tuesday on Capitol Hill about the rise of authoritarianism, warning lawmakers that countries such as China and Russia are seeking to gain power by… Read more »

Transitions’ lessons offer a way out for Venezuela

     

Opposition leader Juan Guaido, who declared himself interim president of Venezuela in January, said he will return to the country “despite the risks.” Guaido defied a court travel ban last… Read more »

Illiberal toolkit entails ‘a simulacrum of democracy’

     

Conventional wisdom has long held that democratic consolidation is a one-way street and that democratic states, once reaching a certain level of GDP per capita, are immune to democratic breakdown…. Read more »

A new strategy to build resilience to extremism’s corrosive ideology

     

Extremism is enabled by the belief that existing indignities and suffering are the direct result of poor, undemocratic, or predatory governance, notes a new analysis. This sense of injustice aligns… Read more »

Autocracy’s Advance, Democracy’s Decline: National Security Implications

     

At the heart of the new era of geopolitical competition is a struggle over the role and influence of democracy in the international order, according to two prominent analysts. Recent power… Read more »