Category: Democracy Assistance and Promotion

Use soft power to challenge Pyongyang’s grip on information, top North Korea defector says

     

A high-ranking North Korean defector is recommending that U.S. lawmakers greatly increase the dissemination of information inside the isolated country, saying funding for such efforts pales in comparison to U.S. military… Read more »

Culture or economics? What is populism and how did it happen?

     

  In the face of populist fantasists and authoritarians, liberal democrats must draw inspiration from Cicero and Jefferson and reaffirm the wonders of democracy, argues Philip Collins, the author of… Read more »

Ideas and prospects for democratic renewal

     

The assumption that autocracy is a feasible alternative to liberal democracy is understandable. When representative democracy fell before, it fell in that direction. It also fits the trend of events… Read more »

Testing Latin America’s democratic resilience

     

Latin America is about to embark on an extended series of critical electoral contests that will tell us a lot about the state of democracy in the region, notes Ted… Read more »

DRC needs citizen-led transition, civil society tells Nikki Haley

     

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, told the Democratic Republic of Congo to hold elections next year, rather than delay them until 2019, if it wanted to… Read more »

China’s secret ‘magic weapon’ for global soft power

     

Xi Jinping is quietly ramping up the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist party in a push for global “soft power”, The FT’s James Kynge writes in a… Read more »

Losing faith in the democratic ideal?

     

What accounts for the troubled condition of liberal democracy today? Marc F. Plattner asks in the latest issue of The Journal of Democracy: Standard explanations cite factors such as slowing… Read more »

Chinese exceptionalism? Ideology rules in CCP’s new top team

     

A number of major western news groups whose coverage has irked Beijing were excluded from Xi Jinping’s unveiling of China’s new ruling council on Wednesday – in some cases for the… Read more »

Kenya poll highlights East Africa’s fragile democracies

     

  Kenyans vote Thursday in a repeat presidential election that has East Africa’s economic power on edge once more, AP reports: The Supreme Court shocked Africa last month by nullifying… Read more »

As APEC Summit looms, Vietnam escalates crackdown on rights campaigners

     

  Vietnam should drop all charges and immediately release student blogger Phan Kim Khanh, Human Rights Watch said today. Vietnam’s donors and regional leaders should make it clear that they will… Read more »