HK’s Umbrella Movement Fights Back
The run-up to the Sept. 4 election for Legislative Council is getting tense, and the governments of both Hong Kong and Beijing are watching with keen interest, notes analyst Lian… Read more »
Category: Democracy Assistance and Promotion
Suvash Darnal – ‘consummate democracy activist’
It was because Suvash Darnal (right) combined so flawlessly several key attributes that he can be considered to have been a consummate democracy activist, writes Carl Gershman, the President of… Read more »
The Week Democracy Died?
Across the affluent, established democracies of North America and Western Europe, the last years have witnessed a meteoric rise of figures who harness a new level of anger that is… Read more »
For Putin, Ukraine and Syria are part of the same theater
For a country where politics has long been monopolized by the state, Russia has seen a lot of news in the past few weeks, notes analyst Masha Gessen. It has… Read more »
Revitalizing Democracy Support in Troubled Times
The world has experienced a decade of decline in democracy, and the downward trajectory is accelerating, Freedom House reports: Nativist sentiments in the United States and Europe are weakening support… Read more »
China’s Future a Dictator’s Dilemma: Communist Party’s Strategy for Survival
China’s Communist authorities fretting about potentially “subversive” civil society groups — such as rights lawyers and labor activists — have a new red flag: the upcoming birthday of former president… Read more »
Zambia Elections Show Closing Democratic Space in Southern Africa?
Zambia’s President Edgar Lungu has been re-elected, according to official results, which are being challenged by the main opposition party, the BBC reports: The electoral commission said Mr Lungu… Read more »
What failed Soviet coup tells us about 21st-century populism
The abortive coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev twenty-five years ago this week and its aftermath have echoes today, argues Stephen Sestanovich, a Columbia University professor and senior fellow at… Read more »
Nepal – no national unity without inclusive democracy
Nepal’s Parliament recently elected Pushpa Kamal Dahal as prime minister, in the country’s 25th change in leadership in 26 years, The New York Times notes: Political instability is harming Nepal’s… Read more »
Hong Kong: Student Protest Leaders Sentenced
Three student leaders in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, who led mass rallies and sit-ins in 2014, have been sentenced, the BBC reports: Joshua Wong, who became the teenage face… Read more »