Category: Democracy Assistance and Promotion

Russia’s ‘Internyet’: Beginning of the end of the open era?

     

The United States “needs to be prepared for retaliation in the hard cyber space and soft information space” after killing Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, says a top expert at the… Read more »

Kremlin running scared? Russia’s regions ‘in revolt’

     

While Russian President Vladimir Putin celebrates 20 years in the Kremlin and poses as a powerful world leader, his Russian Federation is showing increasing signs of fracture, according to Janusz Bugajski, a senior… Read more »

Back to the future: Another populist, volatile ‘roaring twenties’?

     

The populist test to liberal democracy will remain robust throughout the 2020s,  argues Yasmeen Serhan, a London-based staff writer at The Atlantic: Across Europe, populist leaders have displayed their willingness to… Read more »

Democracy embattled: How bad is the crisis?

     

Around the world, democracies are getting weaker and elected politicians are becoming more unpopular. Are they serving the people—or themselves? The Economist asks (see below). The Crisis of Democracy and… Read more »

Setback for autocrats use of sharp power to subvert the West

     

Zdenek Hrib had been in office for only a couple of months when he first locked horns with Beijing. The youthful mayor of Prague was welcoming diplomats to a reception… Read more »

China’s annus horribilis: Authoritarian turn ‘challenges the world’

     

More than a dozen Chinese lawyers and activists are reportedly missing or were detained by authorities in the final days of 2019 as part of the Chinese government’s year-end crackdown… Read more »

In the conflict between ‘capitalist democracy’ and communism, capitalism won. But…..

     

The emerging competition between American and Chinese models of capitalism, the problem of inequality in developed societies, and the cultural contradictions of meritocracy, were the focus of The American Interest’s Damir… Read more »

Democracy for Palestinians? Election talk rekindles hope

     

The European Union is pressuring the Ramallah-based Palestinian leadership to hold legislative and presidential elections, as the body appears to be moving toward a more strong-armed approach to Palestinian affairs… Read more »

Advancing Arab democracy: interests vs. ideals

     

The Arab Spring uprisings began a century after Woodrow Wilson began a push to promote democracy abroad, believing this would foster world peace and stability. Over the last 100 years,… Read more »

2019’s ‘tsunami of protests’: democracy’s new hope or false dawn?

     

When historians look back at 2019, the story of the year will be the tsunami of protests that swept across six continents and engulfed both liberal democracies and ruthless autocracies,… Read more »