Category: Democracy Assistance and Promotion

How to talk with Russia – ‘rethinking the old freedom brand’

     

So far, Western statesmen, editors, and journalists have responded to Russian propaganda defensively: pointing out lies, rebuffing accusations, disclosing hidden motives, and demonstrating the ugliness of the Russian regime. But… Read more »

Democracy promotion is not election meddling

     

America’s domestic and foreign critics alike commit a serious category error in placing U.S. democracy-promotion efforts in the same basket as electoral interference, says Thomas O. Melia, previously deputy assistant… Read more »

Time to start shredding Putin Playbook

     

Social media platforms are failing to make the changes that would help curb online disinformation and fake news despite the efforts made since the 2016 US presidential election exposed the… Read more »

Liberal democracy vs. illiberalism

     

Many scholars and pundits have recently declared that democracy is in crisis. According to analyses that draw on data from the Varieties of Democracy Project, the average level of democracy across the world has not necessary declined,… Read more »

Recession and renewal in Europe’s democracies?

     

Despite illiberal trends in Europe, surveys suggest citizens are becoming more engaged. The overall picture is one of both crisis and renewal, according to Carnegie analysts Richard Youngs and Sarah… Read more »

Rights activists mourn death of Li Baiguang, Chinese democracy advocate

     

A well-known Chinese rights lawyer died suddenly in hospital of liver failure on Monday (Feb 26), Reuters reports: Li Baiguang, a Christian human rights lawyer who had met regularly with high-level officials… Read more »

Democracies need bipartisan, holistic response to Russian ‘full spectrum’ operations

     

Vladimir Putin doesn’t tweet and he claims he doesn’t have a smartphone. But he has something likely more important than gadgets — long experience in the KGB and its post-Soviet… Read more »

China’s digital totalitarian state enjoying a ‘golden field for propaganda’

     

  A “shocking new report” from Canada’s intelligence service cites China’s domestically-focused propaganda as an example of the “total” information warfare posing an existential threat to Western democratic pluralism. Ever… Read more »

Russian disinformation distorts American and European democracy

     

The use of disinformation—“active measures”, in the KGB jargon* of Vladimir Putin’s professional past—to weaken the West was a constant of Soviet policy, one that the would-be victims fought back… Read more »