Category: Democracy Assistance and Promotion

Venezuela: the right way to do regime change

     

Given the U.S. administration’s strong rhetoric against Nicolas Maduro’s Venezuelan dictatorship, it seems odd that the U.S. has not yet used many of the non-military arrows in its policy quiver,… Read more »

Liberia’s elections signal ‘irreversible’ democratic course

     

Liberia’s upcoming presidential and legislative elections will mark the first peaceful, democratic handover of a head of state to a successor since 1944, said President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, signaling an irreversible… Read more »

Corruption, poor economy, illiberalism threaten Tunisia’s exceptionalism

     

Poor economic conditions and corruption are at the source of intense public dissatisfaction in Tunisia, according to a new poll by the International Republican Institute’s (IRI) Center for Insights in Survey Research:… Read more »

Alfred C. Stepan, R.I.P.

     

Democracy advocates and scholars are mourning the passing of Alfred C. Stepan. Stepan, a prominent political scientist who served as dean of the School of International and Public Affairs from… Read more »

Kurdish vote reflects Middle East’s ‘existential quandary’

     

  Turkey threatened potentially crippling restrictions on oil trading with Iraqi Kurds on Thursday after they backed independence from Baghdad in a referendum that has alarmed Ankara as it faces… Read more »

Community of Democracies needed now more than ever

     

  When the Community of Democracies first gathered in Warsaw seventeen years ago, no one could be certain that the Community would continue for very long, let alone develop and… Read more »

Xi tightening grip on China’s civil society in effort to ‘institutionalize legitimacy’

     

Since becoming Chinese president in 2012, Xi Jinping has been tightening his grip on civil society, the military and competing political cliques. Now, as the Communist party prepares for the five-yearly… Read more »

Why democracies fail to deliver

     

Is democracy the only kind of political system that can deliver on prosperity and stability? asks Alina Rocha Menocal, a senior research fellow in the politics and governance programme at the Overseas… Read more »

Diaspora plays vital role advancing democracy in Africa

     

  The National Endowment for Democracy has long recognized the important role the diaspora plays in advancing democracy and good governance in Africa, according to Dave Peterson, NED’s Africa Director…. Read more »

Why liberal democracies avoid war, reduce civil conflict

     

International Peace Day is an appropriate occasion for assessing democracy’s contribution to peace and security. The Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, also known as the Paris Peace Pact, does not have a good… Read more »